When the Day Met the Night
by Katelai
Summary: A story of love lost, during season 6, Luke has to leave Lorelai's side and may never come back. What results from this separation? Will our favorite couple make it?
1. When the Moon found the Sun

**When The Day Met The Night**

**Chapter 1**

_**When The Moon Found The Sun**_

**A/N 04/02/2010 — I'm converting this story over from the BWR! I plan to continue to update it until it's complete.**

**A/N 05/28/2009 — Okay I decided it was high time to channel my emo into something more creative.  
I want to give you guys some back story first, so this makes a little sense. Lorelai and Rory had their big epic falling out, but made up soon after. L/L are engaged, but it's somewhere in the beginning of August where this story picks up, so close to the beginning of Season 6.  
Story is named for a song by Panic! At The Disco.**

_When the moon found the sun  
He looked like he was barely hanging on  
But her eyes saved his life  
In the middle of summer_

The things you do for the people you love... sometimes they get so twisted, you get so tied up in the idea that this will make that person happy, that you lose sight of the road in front of you. You lose sight of the writing on the wall, the facts of your life, the others around you.

There was that picture on the wall in Luke's apartment, a young man of 18 in a military uniform, Marines maybe? He had a white hat on. Lorelai always thought that it was Luke's father, it was so... old feeling, black and white, a young old fashioned smile. It fit so perfectly between the fishing poles that she really ever gave it much thought.

The truth of the matter is that it was something Luke had done to forget being abandoned by his entire family. His parents were gone for good, he was alone. If he let those thoughts crowd his mind any longer while laying still in an empty dust covered office, just because it didn't feel as empty as the house, well he probably would have died soon after due to malnutrition. That only thing that made him feel alive again, that made his tormented mind feel settled, was running so hard that he would almost not be able to breath from the fire in his lungs. So he enlisted, he knew if he became a Marine, they would push him so hard he wouldn't have any choice but to live. The serving his country, the being in war, well it didn't cross his mind for a second, all he wanted was to forget.

And he was lucky, amongst his fellow soldiers, he did seem to stand out. He made it to Sergeant in only two years and got the recognition of his peers, but soon realized that his heart wasn't in it. He had gotten what he wanted, his heart was freshly scarred, but starting to heal, and he was almost able to accept losing his father and mother so young. And fortunately for Luke, a torn tendon in his knee was all it took to be discharged, to head home to Stars Hollow, not quite a war hero, but something at least.

No one really knew that Luke was in the Marines, strangely enough, he wasn't much for words, as we all know. He tucked his uniform and paraphernalia away in an old trunk, hung that picture on the wall, as it had come with the frame and he opened his diner.

Unfortunately, as well all know, one of the rules of life is that everything happens for a reason. Luke brushed his service aside as being something he had to do for his own mental health. Of course, life isn't as forgiving as that, and soon this old secret of his, although noble and admirable for an American citizen, would soon tear his world apart.

It started with a military proviso during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that soldiers, particularly Marines in ground troupes, would soon be able to continue service after certain knee injuries. Enlisted numbers were growing short and the war was escalating.

One afternoon in Luke's Diner, Lorelai was seated on a stool picking at some chili fries as Luke went over his traditional speech on how it would kill her one of these days. For some reason, on that particular day, Luke had woken up on the wrong side of the bed and his comments were a bit harsher than normal. Lorelai picked up on this and asked him what was up. The moment Luke took a breath to respond to her the bells above the Diner door jingled and two uniformed Marine officers entered. The moment Luke saw them his heart dropped into his belly and his hands went clammy.

The first one, wearing a gold leaf on each shoulder to signify himself as a Major, approached Luke. "Sergeant Danes?" he asked.

At this, Lorelai's jaw dropped and she immediately looked Luke in the eye for confirmation. Luke nervously turned from the Major to Lorelai, distractedly he responded, "Yes..."

The second uniformed officer, adorned with a single silver bar on each shoulder, handed Luke a letter. Both of them saluted Luke, who without thought returned the solute, and watched them walk out of the diner.

"Sergeant?" Lorelai asked incredulously. "Sergeant Danes?"

Luke hardly heard her as he stared at the paper in his hands, the torn open envelope clutched in his left fist. His jaw was slack, his face had gone pale and sweat bean to bead on his temples. "Luke?" Lorelai asked again, worried about what he held in his hands.

~Luke's Apartment~

"You're in the Marines?! You're... you... why didn't you ever say anything Luke?!" Lorelai pressed Luke for answers, her arms wrapped around her mid section, a confused and hurt expression on her face.

Luke was still staring at this piece of paper, except now he was seated in a chair in his kitchen, a beer in front of him, his hat sitting on the table. "That's not all..." he told her, quietly, afraid of her reaction.

Lorelai felt her gut contract, her heart started to pound as she reached for the chair in front of her.  
"Sit down Lorelai." The moment her butt hit the chair her eyes started to well up, she was afraid she already knew what he was going to tell her. He began, "I joined up when I was 18... after my Dad died, you... you didn't know me back then, I was broken, I wanted to kill myself... a recruiter came into town and it seemed like the only thing I could do... then I got discharged after two years for a torn ACL..."

"And they just wanted to stop by and say hey what's up?" Lorelai asked through the tears starting to fall from her eyes. Luke had never been able to see her cry without feeling a twinge in his gut; he put his hand on her knee. He knew she knew, but he also knew she needed to hear it from him.

"They changed the regulations... and I still had three years left..."

"Luke you're almost 40! They can't do this!" Lorelai said almost irate all of a sudden, standing up, demanding another reaction from him.

"I have to report to the military base in New Haven next week," was all Luke could give her, before he placed the paper on the table with defeat.

And that was it. Lorelai made Luke contact a Lawyer, who ever so kindly informed them that if Luke evaded the military, he'd be court marshaled and would face a few years in a federal prison. The only way to avoid service would be to fail a physical and if he forced harm upon himself, that lovely court marshal again.

Their last week together, although Lorelai tried to accept the inevitable and show Luke she loved him... she really couldn't help but wonder what the hell was supposed to happen. And Luke being Luke, he could read her like a book, he noticed her false front, how broken up and devastated she was. Three years, three whole years... heck they hadn't even been dating for three years. And three years ago now? She was engaged to that Max guy, he hadn't even married Nicole yet. A lot could happen in three years.

Neither of them, during that last week, were really able to talk about what might happen between them, to their relationship, for that length of time. Lorelai, when she tried to talk to Luke about it, just crumbled in front of him and Luke feared that if he brought it up, his heart wouldn't be able to take whatever outcome they would agree on. Also, Luke was afraid that if she did make him discuss it, he would break down and in far worse a way than any dark day he'd ever been through. So both of them occupied themselves with the tasks at hand, Luke with making sure the diner would survive three years without him. Lorelai, with gathering up Luke's things to take with him and tailoring his uniforms.

More for himself than anything, on Luke's second to last night, he made love to Lorelai all night long. He breathed in her scent, savored her smooth skin, tried as best he could to memorize the way her body felt pressed up against his own. He whispered constant words of adoration and love into her ears, told her she could do anything, be anyone, that he was so proud of her. And all Lorelai got, she gave back, knowing they didn't have much time left for those things soon.

When Lorelai woke up the next morning, later than usual, after all the love-making, Luke was not on his side of the bed. All of his things were gone, even his little tube of toothpaste in the bathroom was missing. His side of the closet was cleared out and Lorelai's favorite light blue flannel she kept in her pajama drawer was gone. Heart racing, Lorelai ran as fast as she could into the kitchen and found the coffee brewed, breakfast in the microwave and a note sitting under a yellow daisy on the table. Her heart just about pounded out of her chest, her vision started to black out in large bubbles and blurs of tears. Cautiously and shakily, Lorelai took the seat in front of her and stared at the note, at the daisy, willing herself to breath, afraid of seeing what that letter said.

It probably took her half the day to read two pages of Luke's messy scrawl, she had to read and reread, her mind constantly panicking and drifting off, her concentration long gone.

_Lorelai,_

__

First please let me say how much I love you and how much I'll miss you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me in this small crazy town, I don't know where I would have ended up if you hadn't rushed into my diner that one morning in a caffeine frenzy. You are the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think of before going to sleep. I don't know if I could ever really make you understand how much I love you and for how long it's been.

And that's why I'm not there this morning, it's killing me Lorelai, to even think that I'm going to spend a day away from you. I don't want you to see me like this, I need to be strong for you, I know how hard this is going to be on you. I wish I hadn't torn my damn ACL, I wish so many things had happened differently, I wish my Dad hadn't died, I wish I could stay there with you. I want.... Oh fuck it, Lorelai, I wanted to marry you and I wanted to have kids with you, I wanted to make a home with you, grow old by your side and die with you.

You said it yourself, I'm almost 40 and I don't know what the hell is going to happen out there. I mean I see the news every morning, I hear stories, families devastated and it kills me to think that I'm going to do that to you. So I'm-- Lorelai, please please please please understand, you need to move on, you need to-- I know this is awful Lorelai, I know how horrible this is. But you need to move on, you need to forget about me, three years and the things that are happening, it would kill me if you waited only to lose me or you were too old to-- what if after three years, they decide, three more! I know it's going to kill you, it's killing me right now. But I can't make you wait, I can't let you wait for me.

I've been thinking about this all week. I know you'll be able to move on, you're a strong amazing woman, I've never known anyone else like you. I know you can do this, I know you can move on, I think about three years ago and see how different things were back then. I'm sorry I did this in a letter but I know if I told you this morning... you would have convinced me to not let you go, to run away with you, anything but leave you... I'm weak for you.

Lorelai... find a guy that is strong and can take care of you if you let him, a man that will make you happy and love you. Even if it's Christopher, just make sure he makes you happy. I just want you to be happy, it's the only fair thing I can do for you.

I took my things so you won't have to see them or make a Luke box... You should keep the ring, sell it if you're running low or throw it in a river or a lake, or if you really can't bear to have it, send it to Jess, I don't want you to keep it if it's just going to hurt you. I know I'm hurting you and I'm so sorry, this thing that's happening, maybe it was a sign... I'm not one for signs, but, any reason I can find now, it'll make it easier for both us.

Just be happy, you have to be happy, that's all I want.

_Love,  
Luke_

When she finally got through the letter it was almost completely soaked with tears, she had sobbed so much that her throat was hoarse and she could hardly breath. She called the diner, to see if he'd answer, but when Caesar picked up she hung up, afraid that she sounded as horrible as she felt. His cell phone was disconnected, he was officially gone, even his truck and boat were nowhere to be found, the apartment above the diner locked and bolted.

_So she said, "That's okay  
As long as you can make a promise  
Not to break my little heart  
Or leave me all alone in the summer."_


	2. I'm Scared

**When The Day Met The Night**

**Chapter 2**

_**I'm Scared**_

**A/N - ****I really want to find a song that fits each chapter, lyrics in this one are from I'm Scared by Duffy. Also since my normal beta is completely engrossed in the Sims 3 and hardly coming up for air, thanks to Erin to doing the Beta on this one!**

_The blank pages of my diary,  
That I haven't touched since you left me,  
The closed blinds in my home,  
See no light or day,  
Dust gathers on my stereo,  
'Cause I can't bare to hear the radio,  
The piano sits in a shaded space,  
With a picture of your face_

He knew she wouldn't be able to function that day or the next one, he knew she'd probably sit in that kitchen chair, ignore the coffee and breakfast and cry. It broke his heart knowing what he was doing to her, so he continuously reminded himself that it was for the best. The cab he called that morning looked like a hearse and he felt like he was being carted off to his grave. Every mile that separated Luke from Star's Hollow made him feel more and more dead inside.

Rory found her mother in bed on Saturday morning, clutching a yellow daisy and a crumpled piece of paper to her chest. In truth, Luke anticipated Lorelai's reaction, so he made sure that her daughter would be there at least the next day, to ensure she wouldn't be alone. After all, no one should have to be alone after something like that.

"Mom?" Rory asked timidly, sitting on the edge of Lorelai's bed, her hand on her mother's shoulder. "Mom...?" she asked again, afraid of what else she could say. _Are you okay?_ was a silly question to ask, as the answer was obvious. _This sucks_. A silly statement that might make her feel worse. But then she came up with the perfect thing; "I love you, Mom."

Lorelai struggled to smile and put her hand on Rory's arm. "He left me, Rory..." she finally managed to say as a few tears drifted down her cheek. Sniffling, Lorelai wiped the moisture with her palm, unsure of what else she could do or say.

Rory moved to lay by her mother's side, wrapped her arms around Lorelai and soothingly rubbed her arm. At this, Lorelai clutched the letter in her hands tighter, crinkling the paper and disturbing the silence in the room. "Did he send you?" Lorelai asked.

While nodding Rory simply said, "Mmhm." And at that, Lorelai drifted off to sleep, as she hadn't been able to do the night previous. Rory watched her mom slumber through the pale yellow morning light, crying lightly herself; the hurt was incredibly palpable.

_I'm scared to face another day,  
'Cause the fear in me just won't go away,  
In an instant  
You were gone,  
And now I'm scared..._

Luke found himself lost in thought during the entire cab ride, wondering about Lorelai, wondering about his life, about how it might be too hard to come back when she moved on. Before he knew it, the cabby was telling him they had arrived and he found himself standing in front of a door with a bag in his hand, trying to remember if he paid the driver. And truth be told, Luke really had no idea what was in store for him once he stepped through that door. He had been given an information packet but was too overwhelmed to even open it.

The Marines didn't waste any time twiddling their thumbs. First thing the next morning, he sat in a large truck being carted to another base for three weeks of boot camp. What little hair sat on his head was shaved, his belongings were searched like he was a common criminal and he was told when to eat, drink, sleep, spit, shit and swear. It was a relief, really; the physical exertion left little blood left for a tormented brain, and Luke soon found that he was able to zone out avoiding most of his thoughts so time could pass by faster. And when he'd let his mind think even a little thought about anything else, he's once again feel the knot in his gut that pulsated with emotional pain, the piece of Lorelai that he had taken with him. He hoped that it'd dull after time, but for now, he could ignore it with every mile he ran, every weapon he fired and every pit of mud he crawled through.

_Coffee stains on your favorite book,  
Remind me of you so I can't take a look,  
The magazines you left on the floor,  
You won't need them anymore,  
A towel left hanging on the wall,  
No sign of wet footsteps in the hall,  
There's no smell of your sweet cologne,  
I'm lying here alone_

Lorelai was back at work that next week, knowing she couldn't take another day of prerecorded VHS compilations or staring blankly at a pile of fabric, willing it into another dress. Besides, when she managed to dig through her sewing kit, she was greeted by scraps of material from Luke's uniform and was devastated and repulsed at the same time. The Dragonfly had a private office for her to hide away at, a desk covered in paperwork, dim lights, the comforting glow of an old computer and an ample supply of coffee. For once in her life, she was relieved it wasn't Luke's coffee.

It did help that she was angry, supremely and utterly so--one could even say infuriated and irate. She had moved past the first stage of grief and she enjoyed the ride that anger gave her; it helped her work and get through her day. The anger helped her forget how hurt and betrayed she felt, although it didn't make sleep come any easier and that soon became the most dreaded part of her day. She would either dream of Luke being oh-so-Luke-like, loving her or laughing with her, holding her, kissing her... or she'd dream of a Luke lost, hurt or dead or once, no longer in love with her. Both kinds of dreams were equally devastating and it made her reject sleep until the last possible moment, hoping that maybe the dreams wouldn't come that night due to sheer exhaustion.

And by telling no one of what happened, of course, all of Stars Hollow knew about it. Everywhere Lorelai turned someone was standing there with a look of pity on their face, which as we all know, is the last sight a grieving person needs or wants. And it was the worst when it came from her daughter and her best friend. Had no one lost a loved one in that town? It seemed like no one knew just how hard it really was.

Especially awkward was that first day back to work; the moment she sat behind her desk and turned her computer on, she had managed to completely zone out. When she glanced to her computer monitor again she was greeted with a screen saver slide show of her and Luke, holding each other, laughing, _happy_. Which caused her pain to overshadow her anger and the tears began to stream down her face once more, ruining whatever mascara she'd managed to apply that morning. And of course, Sookie came into her office that moment to force her to eat breakfast.

The standard unwanted comforting routine was given, as any good best friend knows, but the conversation soon veered off course. "You know he'll never stop loving you..." Sookie let slip before thinking about her words.

"Sook... just..." Lorelai managed to say from behind her desk, her face in her hands.

"Well... Sweetie, you know that... don't you? I mean -- he's Luke, he'll come back, no matter what that stupid letter says."

"You don't know that Sookie! And I mean, even if it's true, I have know way of knowing for sure!" The fury was coming back. Lorelai was soon standing and saying these things more forcefully than normal, in a tone she didn't often take with Sookie. "It would have been easier if he had died, Sookie! I mean, then I would know he was gone and I could work on actually _moving on_. But now he's in some kind of fucked up limbo where I don't know if he'll come back. I mean, what if I do move on like he wants me to? Find some other guy, knowing I'm totally in love with Luke still, and then Luke comes back. I mean, how fucked up would that be? And you know if he does come back... _alive_... it--it'll be to Stars Hollow, he's too... too... _Luke_ not to!" With those last few words, especially _alive_, Lorelai almost lost it again. She bit her bottom lip hard to avoid another emotional episode, concentrating on the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

Sookie slowly sat in the chair across from Lorelai's desk, a shocked expression on her face. She started to play with a pink Band-Aide on her hand, staring at it intently. "Sweetie..." she said, unable to make eye contact, at a loss for words and defeat in her voice.

Lorelai sat down with a puff of air expelling from her lungs, suddenly feeling guilty about winning that conversation. "Don't worry about it... I'll be fine." And with that she began to shuffle papers on her desk after hastily turning her computer screen off.

Luke's days weren't much easier, but at least no one knew him. The only person there to pity him or scold him was himself. In a world of strangers, this soft-spoken man soon lost most of his relationship with words, only really speaking now when hard pressed to. And don't be fooled; this new quality of Luke's made him a wonderful soldier, and his superiors soon took notice. Instead of following the men in their training exercises, Sergeant Danes started leading them through, unwittingly proving to the Marines that their decision in calling him back was right.

A pad of paper, alternating between sitting on his bunk, in his bag, on his knee, tormented him to no end. His yellow notepad with the black lines sat ready, his pen constantly poised over the first line, the pad waiting for him to start. Soon he managed to write a _Lorelai_ and a comma, but couldn't get any farther. He didn't even know what he wanted to say to her, but she was the only one he felt _right_ to write. The thought of writing a letter to Jess or Liz made him feel like a scared kid at camp; Liz wouldn't understand or care about his daily rituals and Jess would probably just poke fun. Ironically enough, Lorelai was the one he managed to destroy on his way out of Stars Hollow, but he hoped she'd understand that he still wanted to be her friend. Luke was constantly convincing himself that she did or didn't want to hear from him. He was afraid if he started to write it, he'd beg her to take him back or start telling her to move on. The truth was, he didn't know how to write to her as a friend, and so, he kept putting it off. And he knew without a doubt that he didn't really want her to move on.

"Hey Danes," a younger man said, moving to sit beside Luke on his bunk. Luke gripped his pen tightly and rubbed the side of his face. "Who's Lorelai?" the young man asked him, peering at the notepad in Luke's lap.

Luke put the pad beside him and crossed his arms, shaking his head, trying to think of the right way to describe her, or, not. "She's uh... she's..." Luke said, shaking his head.

The younger man crossed his arms to emulate Luke and smiled, "Ahhh she's one of _those_." Luke, noticing this man's behavior, smiled and nodded. "She waiting for you?"

And with that, Luke's smile was distinguished. "No," he said definitively, clenching his jaw, flexing his crossed arms, his hands in fists. "McCann... isn't there somewhere you have to be?"

Sean McCann, knowing how to take a hint, nodded and rose from the bed. "Danes, we're gonna be stationed together. I'll wear ya down eventually," he said. Smiling, a devilish glint in his eye, he winked at Luke and turned to leave the barrack. Taking a few calming breaths, Luke soon stood and followed Sean out the door.

Once boot camp was over, and they were sufficiently trained in whatever the Marines needed them to know; Luke and Sean were both assigned to the same company destined for Afghanistan.

Heading for their final destination, as the plane took off, Luke couldn't help but think about the numbness he felt in his heart, nothing like the pain he felt in the taxi cab on his way out from Stars Hollow. He wondered, had he finally died inside? And then he felt that too-familiar pull from the knot in his gut and he realized he still had a long way to go.

_In an instant you were gone,  
I'm scared..._

And of course, Lorelai started to work herself into her grave, like everyone expected. Pulling into the Dragonfly's parking lot at six in the morning from not sleeping the night before, falling asleep at her desk; going home after nine reluctantly letting sleep take her. Her stomach was sour and so she didn't eat much ; the most sustenance she saw was from that which Sookie or Rory forcefully compelled her to consume. Even then, she found herself praying to the porcelain god on a daily basis, wondering what she did to deserve such a thing. _It wasn't this hard last time_, she routinely thought to herself, _when am I going to wake up?_ Her private self-pitying thoughts ran through her head, ones she'd never dare tell another living soul.

Lorelai mused that her name really meant "unending spiral of defeat" the day Sookie found her ejecting her breakfast in the Inn's bathroom. "Honey... are you pregnant?" her friend asked her with a voice tinged with concern.

_I can't be... I can't be... I'm not supposed to do this alone a second time_... Lorelai thought, as her words caught in her throat, staring at Sookie, mouth agape. And with that Lorelai was forced out the door of the inn, to take the day off, to go to a drug store, _whatever_. Those were Sookie's words, almost exactly.

So she bought the stick--correction, _sticks_--that you ever so gracefully hold under your stream of urine like a cave woman pondering her innards. The stick things were in ample supply at Doose's Market, but unfortunately, the gossip mill was in eternal open season, which guaranteed that every stick thing was probably from 1979 when the market was originally opened. So the Jeep made it's way, far far far away from that little market and the well-to-do townfolk. It ended up in a less than savory neighborhood in Hartford, probably another cursed location asking for a cursed encounter, but it would have to do! Of course, the thing that could have made her trip to the drug store in Hartford as embarrassing as possible was a run in with her mother. Thankfully, that day in her mother's home city, she did not encounter the woman, which Lorelai finally took delight in, and no matter how fleeting, she felt a little more like herself.

Adorned with a scarf and sunglasses a la _Thelma and Louise_, Lorelai approached the checkout counter with a hand basket filled to the brim with every kind of test possible, plus the adorable Hello Kitty stationary on clearance. Like a spy on the prowl she approached the checkout counter, slightly hunched, a woman on a mission. Shoulders raised, head down, she bashfully smiled at the attendant. The bangles song running on repeat in her head was suddenly cut short when she heard the one word she didn't know she'd dread the most that day. "Lor?"

_Pretend you don't hear it, hunch more!_ She schooled herself, trying to signal the cashier to _hurry the fuck up_!

But there it was again, the telltale "Lor?" Her elbow was grabbed and she spun around, beat red and smiling awkwardly.

"Oooh Chris! Hey!" She said, mustering all the fake happiness she could possibly conjure on a day like that.

Making small talk, her back to her basket, the cashier and her loot, she managed to dispose of the-Christopher-phenomenon before he could notice what she was hiding. He mentioned something about calling her later and _so sorry about Luke_, before leaving.

Agape again, was her facial expression, except this time it was in front of CVS with a giant shopping bag filled with pregnancy tests, dressed up like Thelma (or Louise). _So sorry about Luke?! How the eff does Christopher know about Luke. And what poetic justice is this? I'm 'bout to have Luke's maybe-baby and Chris starts calling on me again..._

Well for Lorelai, after the anger, sadness, confusion, shame, loneliness, hopelessness, it all suddenly morphed into one giant numb feeling. Without realizing it, she somehow arrived from the drugstore to her bathroom, her Newly-Luke-Remodeled-Bathroom, clutching a shopping bag containing the envy of pregnant teenagers everywhere. _My life can't be this ironic_, she thought as she moved to try the first test, removing it from the box and sitting on the toilet. Now that's a good Lorelai, back bent like you're picking the insects from someone else's back hair, for a nice afternoon snack, watching to make sure the stream is indeed flowing over the tip of the stick thing. What could be more graceful?

With an exasperated grunt, she took the stick-thingy, propped it on the counter, tip over the edge of the sink, grabbed another test and repeated the process until she did not have enough fluid to continue. Not bothering to stand from the toilet, Lorelai bent over, resting her elbows on her knees, rubbing her toes together while holding her head in her hands, hair framing her face in a curtain of loose curly waves. Mentally she zoned out again until she was startled by a pregnancy test tumbling over onto the floor. It landed so perfectly that the tip was propped between her toes, so that she couldn't mistake the result.

"Fuck!" she whispered as she jumped up and moved towards the counter. While pointing at one at a time she shouted, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"


	3. Untouchable Face

**When the Day Met the Night**

**Chapter 3**

_**Untouchable Face**_

**A/N – Well, I've had this chapter written but unposted for quite some time now! I hadn't planned to update this on FFnet right away, since I just started updating there as well. But I figured, why make you wait? You're probably as bored this Easter Sunday as I am! **

**And the song is Untouchable Face by Ani Defranco.**

_Think I'm going for a walk now_

_I feel a little unsteady_

_I don't want nobody to follow me_

_'Cept maybe you_

_I could make you happy you know_

_If you weren't already_

_I could do a lot of things_

_and I do_

In a small bright room Lorelai laid on a rubber bed, wearing a hospital gown, legs in stirrups, with one arm propped under her head. She stared at the ceiling above her, trying to ignore her current discomfort and quietly hoping that the tests being conducted came up negative. _It would be so much easier that way_. She didn't even react when her doctor removed the speculum, her mind too busy doing what it had been doing since she took all those pregnancy tests. She heard her doctor say, _all done_, and quickly turned to look at her.

Six weeks along she said, and then she started to go on about prenatal vitamins, Lorelai once again zoned out of reality, going deep inside of her head. She hadn't allowed herself to go _there_ yet, to think about how this will affect Luke, how she'll tell him, how she'll deal with it. She wondered if she was okay with the idea of an abortion, and the moment she thought it her gut clenched, she tossed the idea aside.

"Are you in contact with the father?" The doctor asked, stirring Lorelai back to reality.

"Oh uh... Yeah well, he's in the Marines, stationed in Afghanistan," Lorelai managed to say, shocking herself at how odd it sounded.

"Oh, I'm sorry, well, just stop by the desk out front to pick everything up. Congratulations again! And let me know if you have any questions."

"Thanks," Lorelai responded mindlessly, watching the doctor close the door behind her. She laid there for a minute longer, arm still propped behind her head, until she realized once more where she was.

Lorelai ambled through that day like she was a zombie, a blank look on her face, as she mentally ran herself in circles. She knew what she had to do but she just couldn't bring herself to accept the truth yet. She found herself in the bustling Dragonfly kitchen, Sookie busy in the center chopping vegetables.

"Sookie I'm pregnant," Lorelai spit out, unconscious of the other people in the room. And with that one statement all production stopped, Sookie's jaw dropped a moment before she crossed the room and dragged Lorelai into her office.

"You're sure?" Sookie asked first, once the door was closed.

"Yeah... I just got back from the OBGYN, six weeks," Lorelai responded, visibly numb and vacant, plopping down into her desk chair.

"Oh so... you're going to keep it," Sookie pressed, pulling up a guest chair from across Lorelai's desk.

Lorelai looked down at her hands. "Yes."

"Have you told Luke?"

And with that there was silence. _I want to tell Luke, _Lorelai screamed in her mind, _but I don't want to tell Luke. How do I tell Luke? _Lorelai just shook her head.

"Sweetie, you _have_ to tell Luke!"

"I know! It's just, I'm all screwed up Sook, I know what I have to do, I'm just not ready to face it, I guess. I'm mad at him because I miss him--well I was--I feel so out of it now. I'm so screwed up."

Sookie leaned forward in her seat, "It's understandable, you've been through a lot. You don't have to do anything today, sleep on it okay?" Lorelai nodded in agreement. "Honey, you're going to love that kid, you know that right?"

A small smile crept onto Lorelai's face as the realization of being pregnant meant having a_ baby, _finally started to dawn on her. And then she thought about how she would have to do it all alone, _again_, and closed her eyes tightly. "Sook," Lorelai croaked, starting her feel her eyes burn with tears, "Can I just have a minute alone?"

"Yeah sure honey, I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

_So fuck you_

_And your untouchable face_

_And fuck you_

_For existing in the first place_

_And who am I?_

_That I should be vying for your touch_

_And who am I?_

_I bet you can't even tell me that much_

"Hey Danes, ya know, there's such a thing called email. Instantaneous, instant gratification, you know, this new technological achievement of human kind. I know you're pretty damn old, but I woulda thought even you'd know about it!"

"Stuff it McCann... I don't have a computer," Luke responded agitated, still trying to write that letter, this time from his cot in the tent he now shared with Sean McCann.

"Danes, you know you're my homie, you can use mine! I even have a webcam, so you can skype it up with the ladies," McCann said cheekily, waving his MacBook around in the air. "Do you have an email account?"

Luke sighed and rubbed his face, "Yeah I do, Lorelai made me set one up before she left, made me put everyone in my address book even though I told her I wouldn't use it."

"Lorelai sounds like a smart lady, got a picture of her?" McCann asked, moving to sit by Luke on the cot, with his laptop tucked under his arm.

"Yeah... she packed one in my bag somewhere," Luke responded, not bothering to look up, afraid that he'd have to take it out, he hadn't had the guts to do so yet.

"Well let me see. Jeez, Danes, I'm not your monkey, stop try to make me dance!"

Luke rubbed his tired eyes again before reaching under his cot for his duffel bag, in which he rooted around until he found the notebook Lorelai packed for him. Not only did it have pictures of her, Rory, Jess, Liz & TJ, it contained his email login info and phone numbers, just in case. Luke stared at the notebook, labeled in Lorelai's loopy scrawl, "Sergeant Luke Danes".

Sean, sensing Luke's trepidation, took the notebook from his hands and opened it to the first page, where Lorelai stared up at him. She was beaming with happiness, her hair curly and dark, her eyes the brightest of blues. This caused Sean gasp and look at Luke with his mouth open, "Danes... you're a dog! Dude, she is so freekin' hot! You said she's single now?!"

With that, Luke snatched the book out of Sean's grasp and shoved it back into his duffel. Sean didn't let this phase him, "Seriously I cannot believe you dumped that chick, you're one certifiable dumb-ass Danes. If I had a woman like that I'd never let her look at another man again, no matter where I was. Afghanistan, Iraq, the moon, another whole freekin' galaxy for Christ's sake!"

"God dammit, McCann, it's not that easy!" Luke responded exasperated.

"Whatever man, here, check your damn email," Sean responded, shoving the laptop in Luke's lap. "You know how to use a mac?" Observing Luke staring at the screen blankly, Sean proceeded to help him get logged into his email account. "Okay... Luke Danes at gmail dot com, you're all set! And look at that, not only did your lady email you, you got some from a Jess, Elizabeth... uh and a Kirkielu. Huh, Kirkielu, must be one damn ugly chick."

Leaving the laptop in Luke's capable hands, Sean left the tent to go find some dinner.

-ooo-

_Hey Uncle Luke,_

_I bet you love military fatigues, even less effort for you in the morning! Well anyway... things are going well at Truncheon, working on my book, not a lot else going on. _

_Everyone is thinking about you, some of the guys and I are putting some funds together to send you some body armor. Don't bother arguing about it, it'll make Liz and Lorelai happy._

_Stay in touch,_

_Jess_

-ooo-

_Hey Big Bro,_

_We're really missin' ya! I'm so bummed I didn't get to say bye, that stupid ren faire schedule and you must've been really busy getting ready to leave. TJ and I are thinking about you every day, please be careful, we really love you. I took that picture of you in Dad's old office, of you when you first joined the Marines. I hope you don't mind, we hung it up in our kitchen._

_Jess is doing really great in Philly. I know I've said it tons, but thank you so much for taking him in a few years ago, you really helped the kid out._

_Lorelai gave me your shipping address so we're gonna send you a care package. Don't worry, there won't be any Mallomars in it like Lorelai told us to send, it's gonna be all fruity nutty heathy crap and a few dirty magazines._

_We all really miss ya bro._

_Love,_

_Liz_

-ooo-

_Hiya Luke!_

_This is Lulu, Kirk asked me to send you an email asking about fishing. He wanted to start taking tourists to the lake to teach them how to fish and knew you were quite the fisherman. I told him it was probably a good idea to get advice from someone in town, but he insisted on us emailing you about it. He also said that you had taught Lorelai to fish once and that she was quite the accomplished fisherwoman now because of it. _

_Kirk really does adore you Luke, and he misses your presence in the diner. To tell you the truth, you really put Kirk in his place most of the time, and he's gotten a little wild since you've left!_

_But if you have any fishing wisdom to impart, it would make Kirks day. Maybe throw in a few expletives, to give him the feeling like you're really there._

_Sincerely,_

_Lulu for Kirk_

-ooo-

_Luke,_

_I hope things are well there. I don't know what else to say, you just left. It was a hard day, thanks for calling Rory. _

_You could have at least left the blue shirt or let me say goodbye._

_So here it is: Goodbye, Luke._

_~Lorelai_

_Luke,_

_I'm thinking of The Way We Were, you know how I called you that one time and... Well, I just miss you. And I'm still angry, but please be careful over there. I don't even know if you'll check this email... if you do, please let me know you're ok._

_~Lorelai_

_Luke,_

_I probably shouldn't be emailing you anymore, you haven't responded to anything which means you're not checking it or you don't want to talk to me. In conclusion, making this effort of mine pointless, but I guess I might as well keep writing because you'll either not read this at all or it'll just make you...ignore me more?_

_Things are getting a little easier although I'm not sure what the hell I'm supposed to say. I'm still so angry, and I know you did the right thing in your mind, but I'm still angry. I'm angry because I miss you, I'm angry because I'm in love with you, I'm angry because I'm alone...I'm angry because I'm so worried about you._

_I will promise you that I will never beg you to take me back or to commit to me, if that gives you any peace of mind. I do want to still be able to be your friend, you know a friend that you talk to regularly, to tell how you're doing. I think that's one thing we will both agree on, or at least, you owe me that._

_I miss you Luke, if you do read this, please talk to me. Grunt in my general direction. Anything._

_~Lorelai_

_Luke,_

_Maybe this effort is useless but I really need to talk to you, video chat hopefully if you can get access to a webcam. We really really really really need to talk "in person", please Luke, schedule a meeting? My skype account is Sephoralai. I had set up a skype for you remember? You were LDanesSH, all the other info is in that notebook I made, I hope you still have it._

_Please just trust me on this, this is important, too important to say in email._

_~Lorelai_

Once Luke finished the last sentence of Lorelai's latest email, he promptly shoved all of her emails into a separate filter and went to respond to Jess and Liz, telling Lulu he'd write up something for Kirk later, saving Lorelai for last. As he was about to try to piece together an appropriate responce for Lorelai, he heard a horn sound and realized just how long he had been sitting there. He quickly locked the laptop in Sean's foot locker and ran out the tent flap.

_Two-thirty in the morning_

_And my gas tank will be empty soon_

_Neon sign on the horizon_

_Rubbing elbows with the moon_

_A safe haven of sleepless_

_Where the deep fryer's always on_

_Radio is counting down_

_The top 20 country songs_

_And out on the porch the fly strip is_

_Waving like a flag in the wind_

_Y'know, I don't look forward_

_To seeing you again soon_

_You'll look like a photograph of yourself_

_Taken from far far away_

_And I won't know what to do_

_And I won't know what to say_

_I'm sorry Mom, I've already got a midterm to study for and just way too much work at Yale, Grandma told me to stay at school, sorry I missed you! I love you Mom, lets do something next week! _Lorelai listened to Rory's tinny voice through the receiver of her cell phone. Grumbling, she threw the phone into her purse and pulled the door of her Jeep open. Friday night dinner awaiting her behind a giant oak door.

Checking herself for any inward signs of nausea, Lorelai took a deep breath and tried to will herself to raise her arm and ring the bell. _Why didn't I fake sick? _She thought, _I _could_ throw up when I get in there..._

She actually had no intentions of telling her parents, or anyone, except Rory, Sookie and Luke, before the first trimester was over. Rory and Sookie took it rather well and she had yet to get in touch with Luke. Mostly she was keeping it from her parents to avoid whatever verbal assault they would lay onto her; like "living in sin", "out of wedlock", and God-forbid "bastard child".

She was trying not to get upset over the lack of communication with Luke. Six weeks out in god-knows-where in Eastern Asia and he hadn't responded to a single email. At first she had assumed he wasn't checking it until she heard Liz beaming to Miss Patty about the few emails she had received from Luke, about how he was well and how he was now one of the leaders in his company. After this, Lorelai tried hard to let the hurt go, but then she heard Kirk beaming about how Luke had promised to email him some fishing tips, which immediately caused her to lose her calm.

After that day that she overheard Kirk's conversation at Al's Pancake World, Lorelai had walked herself home with tears streaming down her face. She allowed herself to wonder if Luke did hate her for some unknown reason, which made the whole idea of telling him about the baby even harder. Fueled by hurt and anger, Lorelai quickly wrote Luke a letter on her Hello Kitty stationary. She placed into an envelope with another paper she grabbed from her purse, sealed it and addressed it. Before she could change her mind, she stamped the envelope and ran out to drop it into the postal box by the town square.

And there she was, later that week, standing before the door of her parents home, feeling as though she were a prisoner on death row. Nothing was going well for her, nothing, and she knew that her parents, although they always meant well, usually just amplified whatever anguish she was feeling.

Finally able to ring that dreaded bell, the moment Lorelai reached for it the door swung open with an expectant Emily wearing a smug smile. "Lorelai! Thank goodness, I thought some of those insufferable Jehovah Witnesses were stalking the neighborhood again! Please come inside, everyone has already started on drinks."

_Everyone? Rory came? _Lorelai wondered as she gave her coat and purse to her mother and headed for the living room. When she saw who "everyone" was she stopped in her tracks, suddenly unable to breath.

"Lor!" came the familiar salutation, as Christopher leaped up from his seat to hug her.

"Lorelai isn't it fantastic? We just heard Christopher and Gigi moved back to Hartford to live with Francine, and we thought, well since Rory canceled on us, maybe Christopher could come!" Emily informed her excitedly as she walked back into the living room.

Still at a loss for all words, once Chris had freed her from his grasp, Lorelai took a seat. Richard handed her a martini and she took it mindlessly, still reeling from the entire encounter, from the _entire day_. Had they thought, well hey, Lorelai's fiance broke it off and ran to Afghanistan, why not try to reacquaint her with Christopher as they were _so_ meant to be together. Lorelai's a tough girl, she bounces back easily. Right?

"Lorelai?" Richard asked, once he realized his daughter hadn't heard a single word he'd said. Lorelai took some of the martini into her mouth without thinking, and upon Richard's prompt she realized what she was doing. Without a better plan, Lorelai spit the alcoholic concoction out, spraying Christopher in a fine mist of gin and vermouth from head to toe.

"Oh my God, Chris, I'm _so _sorry!" Lorelai shouted as she jumped to her feet and ran to the bar to find some cocktail napkins. "I've just uh, not been feeling well, I'm sorry!" Lorelai dropped them into Christopher's lap, unwilling to touch him, for fear that it would cause a bout of nausea, thankful that the gin and vermouth did not.

Chris only managed to sputter out an "Uhhh," before a "Thanks," as he began to dry his face off.

_I see you and I'm so perplexed_

_What was I thinking_

_What will I think of next_

_Where can I hide_

_In the back room there's a lamp_

_That hangs over the pool table_

_And when the fan is on it swings_

_Gently side to side_

_There's a changing constellation_

_Of balls as we are playing_

_I see orion and say nothing_

_The only thing I can think of saying_

_Is fuck you..._

Back in Afghanistan, Luke continued to email his friends and family, save for Lorelai. He knew he was a coward and internally he beat himself up for it almost constantly. He had read her emails, he knew she was angry, that she deserved at least, "Hi, I'm alive, Luke." But he couldn't even bring himself to give her that.

And a week after her last email where she begged for him to set up a video conference, he received a letter from her. It was important and he still could not bring himself to open it, for fear of the contents. He came up with so many reasons not to open it, even though he knew in the end he had to. He had to at least read it, even if he was too yellow-bellied to respond.

"Hey McCann... can you do me a favor?" Luke blurted out without even looking up from the letter in his hands. He was seated on his cot in the tent he shared with Sean, seated across from him.

"Sure buddy," Sean responded without hesitation.

"Open this and read it," Luke said, holding the letter up in the air.

"What?" McCann asked as he moved to sit next to Luke.

"If it says something like, _I married that bastard and moved on_, then I don't want to know... I really don't want to have to read that."

"O-okay..." McCann grabbed the letter and moved back to his cot, ripping it open as he sat. The first thing McCann pulled out was a stiff piece of paper in the front which caused him to blanch, shove it back into the envelop and toss it into Luke's lap. "I am NOT reading that shit Luke, you better fucking read it and now! Fucking-A, Luke!" McCann stalked form the tent, leaving a bewildered Luke in his wake.

Luke pulled the crumpled thick piece of paper from the envelope and stared at it, his jaw dropped all the way to his feet. There was a picture of a stork carrying a little baby in a blue blanket with, "So Now You're Pregnant" emblazoned atop the card, with a checklist of things for a newly pregnant mother to do. _I'm an idiot... _He thought before pulling out the letter written hastily and crookedly atop Hello Kitty stationary.

_Luke,_

_I don't care anymore if you're mad at me, I don't care what the hell you're thinking over there right now. I know you're being an ass and a coward and you're afraid to talk to me. For crying out loud, you even emailed Kirk back! You're wondering, either she wants to tell me she wants me back or she wants to tell me she moved on. I know you well enough to know that, and well that's a little presumptuous of you!_

_I can tell you right now Luke, I am not going to move on, ever, I know that as fact. A part of me believes you know that too, because I know how you feel about me. By now I assume you saw the postcard I enclosed, I am PREGNANT and it's yours. You're going to be a father, and all I can think is, I'm going to be doing this alone again. I didn't want to do it like this! I didn't want to tell you while I was angry or upset, but you gave me no other choice! Ass!_

_And you don't deserve that! You're a good guy Luke, so I know you'll want to be a part of this. I even know already that you'll be an amazing father, but you're not going to be here. And that sucks! Not only because I'll be left with the dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, diaper rash and croup, but because you'll miss the first words and the first steps.... You'll miss the baby smell and the smiles just from seeing your face._

_So here is the deal Luke, you're not allowed to shut me out anymore. If you want to be a part of this at all, you'll do what I ask you to do, I do not have ulterior motives, I am the same Lorelai I always was and now the mother of your baby. I love you and this baby will love you._

_I am having such a hard time already doing this alone and I need you to support me over here, even if it's over the internet once a week. I don't care about what you're afraid is going to happen to you, as long as you're alive and well, we're going to look forward to you making it home safe to us. If you... Luke, if you do not make it home, then I will deal with it when it happens. Okay? I'm allowed to make that decision for myself. I'm not letting you decide for the both of us--decide what's better for me._

_So I... I got prenatal vitamins and I'm trying to eat better, no more coffee :(. My OB said it was six weeks along. So far I've only told Rory and Sookie, I don't know how I'm going to tell everyone else without losing it. Maybe I'll just tell Babette or Patty and let them take care of the rest of the town._

_And I'm still angry, but I miss you so much. At least this time, I don't have to worry about putting a roof over our heads or buying diapers?_

_I miss you so much, Luke. I love you. Be safe and make it home to me in one piece._

_Love,_

_Lorelai_


	4. On My Own

**When the Day Met the Night**

**Chapter 4  
**_**On My Own **_

**A/N - This chapter's song is **_**On My Own**_** from **_**Les Miserables**_**. My new beta is Jewels and she rocks my socks off! I'm lernin' teh grammar real gud by her.**

_Sometimes I walk alone at night  
When everybody else is sleeping  
I think of him and then I'm happy  
With the company I'm keeping  
The city goes to bed  
And I can live inside my head_

She's almost at her breaking point. Home, finally, after the most uncomfortable Friday night dinner known to man. Unable to drink her way through it, unable to stomach any of the food presented to her. Unable to explain why. Trying so hard to hold back her angry tears as Christopher continued to stare at her longingly, but she made it home in one piece, her pregnancy still a secret from her parents. She made it home to her sanctuary, that is, until Christopher showed up at her door thirty minutes later. He was more than halfway to drunk and leering at her playfully.

He tried to force his way into her foyer. Not violently, just in a drunk, lazy way that only a privileged Christopher Hayden would. He placed a hand on her arm which caused her to flinch and her heart to pound. She realized in that moment that she was afraid of him, afraid of what he might do. It dawned on her that she was alone in that house, and if Christopher ever had less than honorable intentions, she had put herself and her baby in a vulnerable position. When she pulled away from his grasp, he leaned on the door frame and begged her to listen. He confessed his undying love for her and told her she'd never be happy with anyone else.

Later that night she sat cross-legged in her bed with her laptop open, her body slightly shaking from anxiety after the long day. She was hoping against hope that Luke had responded to one of her emails; she desperately needed something to go right before she would succumb to sleep. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that LDanesSH was requesting to set up a video conference with her. After a quick hair check and application of lip gloss, she accepted his invitation and almost broke down seeing his face on the other end.

"Oh, Lorelai," he said immediately when he saw her face in the dimly lit room. Lorelai, overcome herself, had a hard time speaking. "I'm so sorry," he continued. "I was trying to think of what to say to you. I was so scared that something happened. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Lorelai nodded and sniffled, wiping at the tears pooling around her eyes. Luke waited for her response. "Luke," she whispered. "It's so good to see your face."

"I hope you can forgive me."

"Oh, Luke," she gasped. "I don't care, I just - I just want - just … stay with me, okay?"

Luke swallowed and nodded. "I'll understand if you want--"

"No," Lorelai said vehemently, cutting him off. "I'm not moving on without you. Don't even think about it. Don't say it out loud. This baby is going to know who his daddy is."

"It's killing me, being so far away," he confessed, swallowing back his own tears.

"I know, me too."

"So, you're what, seven weeks along now?" Luke asked her, a hint of hope in his voice.

Lorelai smiled at his segue, her eyes just about crinkling at the sides. "Yeah, I'll be going in for my first ultrasound in a few days."

"That's the one where you can hear the heartbeat?"

"Yeah, it is. You've been doing your homework."

"Yeah, well, I had time. I've been waiting for over an hour for you to log on ... I really need to get my own laptop."

Lorelai nodded with a sad smile playing on her lips. She bit back a sob. "God, Luke, I've missed you so much!"

"Lorelai," he plead earnestly. "Please don't cry."

"I just, I don't want to do this alone again," she confessed softly. She squeezed her eyes closed, inhaled deeply, and forced her lips to form a sad smile.

"You won't do it alone," he told her gruffly.

"Are you going to teleconference into the OB's office?"

"If I have to. Listen, just … Lorelai," Luke implored. "I can't be there physically, but you know I love you and I love that baby. I'll do anything for you guys, so I just … We just have to get used to this for a little while. Okay?"

"Yeah."

"So, I have a few more minutes on this thing. Can you tell me about your day?"

Lorelai dropped her head into her hands and shook her head. "It was awful."

"Friday night dinner was tonight, wasn't it?"

She raised her head again and looked into his eyes. "My parents know you broke it off with me when you left. I think Rory told them. I mean, I don't care that they know, that's not it. Christopher moved back to Hartford with Gigi and Emily invited him to dinner tonight."

Luke clenched his jaw which was visible through their pixelated video connection, but he held his breath and allowed Lorelai to continue.

"I don't know if my parents are trying to set me up or if they just feel sorry for him. Christopher took it as an opportunity to...." She stopped there, unsure of how to go on.

"Lorelai," he pressed. "Tell me what happened."

"He followed me home."

"What?"

"Well his driver did; Chris was completely lit. He scared me, Luke. I didn't think I'd get him to leave."

"What did he do," Luke demaned.

"He grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go," she told him, still feeling the force of his grip. "It scared me a whole heck of a lot more than I thought something like that would. I suddenly realized I was alone in the house and he was holding the door open. But thankfully, his driver noticed something was wrong and dragged him back to the car."

Luke swallowed and expelled a big gust of air. "I hate that guy."

"Yeah," Lorelai commiserated.

"You should get a restraining order."

"Luke...."

"I mean it, Lorelai. I can't protect you from him when I'm over here!"

"He's Rory's Dad! I can't!"

"If he hurts you, Lorelai, so help me … An ocean separating us won't be enough."

"It won't happen again," she assured him. "It scared me, being alone in this house with this baby now. I'll make sure the doors are locked and everything."

"I really don't like the idea of you being alone over there. Maybe I can get Kirk to reinstall that alarm system--"

"Luke!" Lorelai shrieked, cutting his meandering words off. "I'm still the same Lorelai that I was before I got pregnant ... I mean, I don't like the idea either, but there isn't much we can do about it. Rory's at Yale, and you're over there. I'll keep everything locked up, as if you were here doing it yourself every night."

"Promise?" Luke asked her doubtfully. "Even the back door when you're out? And lock your car?"

"I promise, Sergeant Danes," Lorelai muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Good. I just want you to be safe."

"I know, hon. Maybe I'll drive to Hartford tomorrow so I can speak to my parents about Chris."

"You should, and about the baby."

"Luke, I don't kno--"

"You need to tell them, Lorelai. You can't hide it forever, and you know your mom would just take it personally if you tried. Plus, she'd probably find some way to blame me for all this. And ... even though it might sound a little twisted, you'll need them while I'm gone."

"What do I see in you again?" she asked him through a hint of a smile.

"My charming wit and uncanny similarity to Viggo Mortenson?" he quipped, his own smile blossoming.

"God, I love you," she confessed, her grin becoming brighter.

"God, you're beautiful," he countered, the deep register in his voice turning up. There was a rustle behind him and he sighed. "Lorelai, I've gotta go."

"Okay," she responded sadly. "I love you, Luke."

"I love you," he whispered soulfully before his face faded to black.

_In the rain  
The pavement shines like silver  
All the lights are misty in the river  
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight  
And all I see is him and me forever and forever_

He never really thought that it would be harder, to still be a part of her but to be totally incapable of wrapping his arms around her. She was his again, and the idea made him swell with love, but the thought of disappointing her now was incredibly overwhelming. Throw a baby into the mix, and it seemed possible that the guilt might eat him alive. Throw living in a camp with fifty other sexually frustrated men, some blood thirsty, some scared for their lives, and you've got yourself an even more stressed out man. After all this, Luke was never more grateful to have a Marine like Sean McCann by his side.

It had been 10 pm Eastern time when Luke spoke with Lorelai over skype about her pregnancy, which meant the local time in Afghanistan was around 8 am, right after he had just finished his morning drills. By the time evening arrived and Luke was able to get a moment to himself, the first thing he did was dig into his duffel bag and pull out the notebook Lorelai had put together for him. Slowly he opened the front cover to see her smiling up at him, and his face was overtaken by an electrifying and goofy grin. His heart skipped a few beats, and he thought about marrying her right then and there. He let his thoughts run wild, as if he wasn't sitting in a musty tent in the middle of a desert, and for the first time in weeks, although painfully fleeting, he felt at peace.

At that moment Sean joined Luke in the tent, noticed the look on his face, and peered at the open notebook in his lap.

"She is breathtaking," Sean commented before moving to sit next to his bunkmate on his cot.

Luke simply smiled in response, unable to tear his eyes from the picture.

"So I assume the conversation went well this morning?"

Luke laughed and turned to look his friend in the eye. "Yeah," he said, almost giddy. "I'm gonna be a dad."

Sean snorted loudly and slapped Luke on the back. "That I figured from the card you made me look at. That's great, man. You deserve it."

"Wow," Luke whispered, his attention focused back on the notebook. He turned a few pages to look at the "Now You're Pregnant..." card he had adhered to a fresh page. "I can't believe I'm not there."

"She looks like a strong lady, and from what you've told me, sounds like it too," Sean remarked, turning his head to read the page.

"She is," Luke admitted gruffly. "She could do anything. She really doesn't need me to take care of her. But she lets me, sometimes."

"Smart lady then, too," Sean said in response, smiling from his own amusement.

_I love him  
But when the night is over  
He is gone  
The river's just a river  
Without him, the world around me changes  
The trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers_

The weight that had been pressing down on Lorelai's shoulders was gone, and although she still desperately missed Luke, she felt so much better. She knew that her own confidence might not last long, so the morning after speaking with Luke online, she drove to her parents' house in Hartford.

She found herself on her parents' door step, a hot to-go cup of green tea cradled in her hands, wondering how she'd ever work up the nerve to ring the bell. Of course, the moment she finally gathered the strength to ring the bell, the door swung open, and her mother stared at her incredulously.

"Lorelai?" she asked. "I thought that was your car in the driveway."

"Mom," Lorelai said in greeting. "I, um, can we talk?"

"Well, all right. Your father and I are just finishing up breakfast," Emily replied hesitantly as she moved to side to allow her daughter to enter. Lorelai walked through the front door and made for the dining room, holding her arms across her stomach tightly.

The air in the dining room that day was light, and it appeared that Emily and Richard were both shocked and curious as to why their daughter had randomly appeared so early that morning. Lorelai took a seat at the middle of the dining room table, placed her to-go cup of tea down, and allowed the maid to pour her a cup of coffee.

"Mom, Dad," Lorelai began. "We need to talk." The air in the room was similar to when Lorelai had last appeared so early, in the spring after Rory dropped out of Yale. Of course, Rory had since decided to return back to school in the fall, and both Rory and Lorelai were working on repairing their relationship with the elder Gilmores.

"I should call the office, tell them I'm running late," Richard interjected as he rose from his chair, righted his glasses, and put his paper back on the table. Lorelai watched him leave with some anxiety of her own. She wanted to assure him that what she had to talk about would be quick, but she knew that wasn't likely the case. Lorelai turned towards her mother, offering up a kind smile, but Emily's attention was focused on filling out her date book.

Once Richard had returned to the table, both he and his wife focused their gaze on their daughter. Lorelai sat in a nervous cloud of silence, trying to build of the courage to speak.

"Well, we don't have all day Lorelai. Your father does need to get to the office at some point," Emily said with a touch of animosity in her voice.

Lorelai bit her lip and squinted her eyes shut. "I'm pregnant," she blurted out, ruining whatever speech or plan she had worked out to ease her parents into the big news.

"Pregnant?" Richard asked rather loudly. "With a baby?"

"No, with one of those little fetuses from _Alien_. Yes, a baby. Luke's baby," Lorelai shot back with some aggravation.

"Luke's in Afghanistan," Emily cut in.

"All of his parts worked before he left … I mean, I'm seven weeks along. He's only been gone for six."

"Does Luke know about the baby?" Emily asked.

"Mom! Of course Luke knows!"

"Well, he did break it off with you before he left. I didn't know the two of you were still talking."

"Luke and I have decided that we're going to stay together. He's … he's the one that encouraged me to come talk to you."

"Has he proposed again, after calling off the engagement?" Richard interjected.

Lorelai wasn't sure if she should be offended or hurt from her father's comment. "No, he hasn't. I mean, we haven't talked about it." She suddenly remembered the ring stuffed in the bottom of her sock drawer that Luke had originally asked her to keep.

"So you're just going to do this alone?" Emily asked Lorelai condescendingly.

"Yes, if I have to! And I won't be alone. I have the whole town, I have Rory," she said with her attention focused on the table. "And I hope that I've got you guys as well," Lorelai finished, her voice noticeably quieter.

"Well, of course you do, Lorelai," Emily responded, her tone a little softer now.

Lorelai nodded, her eyes still trained on the intricately sewn lace on her mother's table cloth.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Emily inquired after a beat.

"Oh, no, but there's one other thing." Lorelai squeezed her eyes shut as she felt a sudden rush of tears. She breathed deeply and grasped her hands tightly in her lap. "It's Chris. He's … he followed me home last night after dinner."

Lorelai finally raised her head to look at her mother and father. They were both staring at her in stunned silence. "He's pushing me, and usually I can handle him. I know you invited him to dinner because you hoped after Luke broke off the engagement, that he and I--" She stopped to catch her breath. "Chris and I are _not_ going to happen. I'm sorry, I know in the past I wanted it to happen, but he's just … I need you to understand. The way he acted last night when he got to my house, it scared me, _a lot_. I can't have that happen again. I've got this baby, Luke's baby, to think about. There's no room for Christopher anymore."

_I love him  
But every day I'm lonely  
All my life I've only been pretending  
Without me, his world will go on turning  
The world is full of happiness that I have never known_

Upon reaching her seventh week, Lorelai learned what a real migraine was. The last time she'd experienced a fairly severe headache, Luke had held her in their bed and applied a cool washcloth to her forehead. Being held and loved had ended the headache almost instantly. Now, with no Luke and a throbbing skull, the migraine made her feel even more alone. The headache soon brought on nausea, and Lorelai found herself once more on her knees in the bathroom. No Luke, throbbing skull, and unending nausea. She let her body, overcome with exhaustion, fall to the cool tile floor. The conversation she and Luke had the other night was reassuring. She wasn't single; he'd be there for her. But really, he wasn't there, and it was still hard.

It was around noon that Saturday. After Lorelai had arrived home from her parents', she wasted no time before changing into her pajamas and putting on a _Friends_ DVD. Rachel was complaining about something in the living room while Lorelai searched for the strength to leave the cold comfort of the bathroom floor. Her strength came through the ringing of the phone, she hoped it was Rory.

"Hello?" she asked tiredly after grabbing the cordless in her bedroom.

"Lorelai? It's me," his voice came through some static, but the warmth in his tone was evident.

"Luke," she whispered, almost falling to her bed in tears from just hearing his voice.

"Hey, I missed you," he admitted softly. "Um, can we do that Skype thing?"

"Oh," she breathed, looking around for her laptop. "Yeah, I'll be on in a minute."

"Okay," he said with some relief, but did not hang up. Nor did she.

"Want to stay with me while I turn my laptop on?" she asked, some brightness returning to her features.

"Yeah," he admitted gruffly. "Don't wanna miss a minute."

Lorelai held the handheld between her ear and shoulder as she moved to sit in front of her laptop on her bed. She hit the power button and heard the strangely comforting soft whir of the computer's fan.

"How has your morning been?" he asked.

"I was at my parents' house. How do you think?" she said, somewhat scathingly. She winced at the pain in her head and her unwittingly sharp tongue.

"Ah," Luke responded with some caution. "You talked to them about the baby?"

"Yeah," she said, feeling a sudden burst of emotion. "I'm sorry, Luke."

"What?" Luke asked with some panic evident in his voice.

"I talked to them about the baby, about Chris. It's good - it was good. They were good. They seemed genuinely interested in helping me. I'm sorry, I'm a crazy pregnant woman. I'm sorry," she cried to him as she tried to get Skype to launch, punching frustratedly at the touch pad.

"Hey, hey," he said softly. "You don't need to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong. It's okay, shhh, it's okay."

"I miss you so much, and my head hurts," she confessed as she saw the Skype logo appear on her screen. She noticed that she had a request to chat from LDanesSH and accepted it. For a moment she stared at Luke's face on the screen with the phone still pressed to her ear, before hanging up and dropping it.

Luke smiled at her sadly. "You don't look so good."

"This is what happens when you spend your morning puking your guts out with the worst headache known to man."

"I'm sorry I'm not there. There isn't anything I want more."

"I know," she sniffled. "Me either."

"I ordered a laptop online today," he admitted through a tight smile.

"Wow," Lorelai breathed. "Luke Danes, luddite of the century, ordered a laptop!"

"Huh, I guess so ... I got a Mac."

"A Mac! No way can you be cooler than me!" Lorelai gasped cheerily.

"My friend Sean, the guy that let me use his laptop to talk to you, has one. I don't know anything about computers, but I figure if I got what he has, he can show me."

"Wow, baby, that's great. So, Sean is a friend you have over there?"

"Yeah, we share a tent. He's a good kid, about twenty-five."

"Maybe I can meet him sometime?"

"Sure. He said that, uh, you're 'so freakin' hot'."

Lorelai let out a genuine laugh which caused Luke to chuckle.

"He also told me I was being an idiot," he confessed softly.

"I like him already," Lorelai told him cheerily. "Luke?"

"Hmm?" he asked, apparently content to sit and stare at her.

"We never talked about what happened with our engagement."

"Oh," he said, sitting up straighter. "Well, I guess I assumed it was back on, after we talked this morning … Well, for you it was last night."

Lorelai suddenly found her hands incredibly interesting.

"Is it back on?" Luke asked her.

"I don't want you to just want to marry me now because I'm having your baby," she confessed with a soft hiccup.

"Lorelai," Luke proclaimed, "that's not what this is about. I mean, I won't lie, things have changed because of the baby, yeah, but also because of that letter you sent me. I thought that if I cut things off, if I just left, it'd be easier for you in the long run. It's dangerous here, and it kills me to think that something might happen to cause me not to … so I wouldn't be around anymore. And maybe it would still be easier for you in the long run--"

"Luke, no!" Lorelai felt her heart contract.

"Lorelai, I am going to hold onto you, no matter what happens, no matter where I am, until the day that I die, and hopefully forever after," he told her quickly, before she could jump to any conclusions.

Lorelai let out a breath and wiped a tear from her cheek. Without looking up, she told him to not mention 'die' ever again.

"So, Lorelai Gilmore, I want you to go into that sock drawer, which is where I think you put the ring. I want you to go get it, and tell me you'll marry me."

Lorelai's smile was the brightest it had been in weeks. She sat and enjoyed the adoring expression on his face before she went about her task. By the time she returned to the computer screen she had the ring in her palm and her smile was still just as blinding.

"Of course I'll marry you, Luke Danes," she told him proudly. Slowly, she slid the ring on without taking her eyes off the screen. "How did you know it was in my sock drawer?" she asked him after a beat.

"I'm just that smart," he told her with a hint of sarcasm in his own bright smile.

"Nuhuh," she replied teasingly.

"After your parents vow renewal," Luke admitted. "I found the necklace and earrings in there."

"Oh," Lorelai gasped. "I always wondered how they ended up back in my jewelry box."

"You won't ever have to hide anything in the sock drawer again, Lorelai."

Lorelai, still unable to stop the goofy grin on her face, lowered her eyes to examine the ring. Allowing her mind to drift, she wondered when they would finally get married.

"I plan to marry you the day I get home," Luke said, as if he had been reading her thoughts.

Lorelai's head popped up, causing Luke to gasp at the pure happiness that was radiating off of her. "My headache's gone."

"I'm glad I could help."

_In the rain  
The pavement shines like silver  
All the lights are misty in the river  
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight  
And all I see is him and me forever and forever_

**A/N - I'm sorry, I just don't have the energy to have Lorelai at odds with her parents!**


	5. The War Was in Color

**When the Day Met the Night  
Chapter 5  
The War Was in Color  
**

**A/N - So here we are again, song this week is The War Was in Color by Carbon Leaf.  
**

_I see you've found a box of my things -  
Infantries, tanks and smoldering airplane wings.  
These old pictures are cool. Tell me some stories  
Was it like the old war movies?  
Sit down son. Let me fill you in  
_

October 15th, 2006

Lorelai,

I'm sorry I haven't been able to call you all week. Increased security measures have been imposed, which means they cut off our internet to make sure no information would be leaked into the wrong hands. They continue to tell me nothing. I think being completely cut off from you is ridiculous.

I was so happy to receive the picture from your sonogram, I hung it up in my bunk. The kid is beautiful. I can't believe a little part of us is growing inside of you.

My granddad, Lachlan, on my father's side, served in the military, but he was a naval enlisted during World War II. Being out here, away from you and Rory, away from Liz and Jess, from the town, it makes me think of the stories he used to tell me when I was just a kid. He saw a lot of action and part of it was almost impossible for him to relive. I think a lot of it had been blocked out in his mind so he wouldn't have to remember. There were other good times, though, and after he'd tell us a story, I often looked at him like he was Popeye.

My dad - his name was Micajah, but everyone in town called him Cage - grew up as a military brat, I'm not sure if I've ever told you about that. I don't talk much about my family, and Im sorry for that. I want you and the baby to know about our family. I'm going to make a conscious effort from now on to tell you about them.

When my dad was a kid, his family would move around a lot, until high school when my granddad finally took a civilian job and they ended up in Stars Hollow. My dad was actually home schooled for most of his life by my grandmother, Bonnie, to make the military relocations easier. My mom also grew up in Stars Hollow, but they didn't meet until they were out of high school.

I realized the other day that you had never asked me about the Williams' Hardware sign outside the diner. That's a great story. My mother, Jane Danes, her maiden name was Williams. And her father, my grandfather Lucas Williams, whom I was named after, owned Williams' Hardware. My grandmother, my mom's mother, passed away due to a stroke when my mom was in high school, so I never did get to meet her.

You'd love this, though - the Williams family were sort of like the Kennedys of Stars Hollow. In fact, Taylor Doose only really took over after the last Williams left Stars Hollow. Anyway, when my dad was twenty or so, he got a job part time at Williams' Hardware while he wasn't working construction. He still lived with his parents at this time, but only because he was helping to support them. I think the rest of the story is pretty obvious. My dad met my mom right there in the store, they got married soon after, and my dad took over for his father-in-law.

In retrospect, they were pretty lucky to have met when they did. They were both in their early twenties, and they moved into this big house on Peach Street with my grandfather, Lucas. They had me and Liz. When Liz and I were just little kids, my grandparents on my father's side passed away. They were both in poor health; my grandma, Bonnie, died from a heart attack when I was four, and we lost grandpa Lochlan to lung cancer when I was ten. Then when I was twelve, my mother passed away. She had a stroke like her mother did at almost the exact same age. My dad was never the same after losing both of his parents and his wife in less than ten years.

My grandfather, Lucas Williams, was still around at that point too, but like my dad, he couldn't really overcome the death of his daughter. We had to put him in a home and we lost him about four years after we lost my mom.

I had to be strong for him and for Liz. I wish life hadn't been so hard on me as a kid. I didn't think it was a big deal back then. I thought I was just doing what I had to do, but looking back, I remember being sad and angry a lot of the time. It contributed a lot to being that angry guy you knew when we first met. I want to make sure our kid doesn't have to deal with the same stuff that we did. Lorelai, you and I, we grew up way too fast. And don't get me wrong. I love who you are, I even mostly like who I am, but I want to make damn sure this baby has the best childhood he (or she) can have.

Love,

Luke

_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo doesn't capture the skin  
From the flash of a gun to a soldier who's done  
Trust me grandson  
The war was in color_

October 18th, 2006

Lorelai,

Well, it looks like we're still pretty cut off from the outside world. I guess I might as well keep updating this letter to you until I can send it out. I wish there was some way to send word to you so you don't worry, but there isn't anything I can do.

I don't know what kind of exposure you've had with the military ... but usually, when a soldier dies on active duty, the military try to inform the bereaved the morning immediately after. They send two officers out early to beat the press, so they - God willing - are the first to alert the family. I don't want to scare you, but I want you to know. This is something you _should_ know.

I think I'll keep writing about my family. I hope I don't bore you. You have told me that your family, the Gilmores, came to America on the Mayflower. So I guess it's safe to say that you descend from Puritans, or at least, Anglosaxons? (I'm assuming that if your mother's family didn't come over on the Mayflower, they came over not long after). What is your mom's maiden name, anyway? I remember you telling me about your Aunt Hope who lives in Europe now. Do you still talk to her? She sounded like she had an exciting life.

If it wasn't immediately obvious, Lochlan and Bonnie were Scots. They came over through Ellis Island in 1920, actually, and both of them had thick accents. They were pretty young at the time and didn't have a lot of money, World War I had just ended, and World War II hadn't broken out yet. I guess my granddad had done a lot of fishing and sailing in Scotland, so in America, he took off on many different fishing boats for long periods of time out of Gloucester, MA, where they lived. So when Lochlan enlisted with the Navy before the second world war started, they were happy to take him on.

I don't really remember Grandma Bonnie since I was so young when she passed away. Apparently, she always told people that her relationship with Lochlan was as strong as it was because he was never home. Being away from you right now, well, I'm not so sure I agree with her point of view. My dad, Cage, was born right before my grandfather went off to war in 1939, and when he came back home in 1945, after the war ended, my grandparents had another baby. It was a girl, and they named her Agnes, or really, Nessa (Nessa was also an old family name; they were really into those sort of nicknames). I guess I never mentioned an aunt on my dad's side because when she was ten, she was killed by drunk driver while she was walking home from school. My dad said he had taken Nessa under his wing and loved her dearly. He had been responsible for making sure she got to school and home safe, since he was sixteen at the time and she was only ten. The one afternoon he trusted her to make it home alone, she never turned up. He blamed himself for her death for a really long time, and he would never talk to anyone about it, save my mom.

When I was just a boy, I walked in on my dad crying in my mom's arms, and I was scared and appalled. Men didn't cry, I thought. I was just a little boy, so I could still cry, but I thought when I became a man I wouldn't need to cry anymore. My mom caught me staring and I guess she saw the look on my face. Later that night my mom told me about my aunt, Nessa, and I vowed then to always watch out for Liz. I guess at the time, I still wasn't sure how I felt about seeing my dad cry. But now when I look back, it sort of breaks my heart. I've been drawn to tears a few times since I became a man, like when I lost my dad, and sometimes on my dark day, when Liz took Jess and moved to New York ... and when I thought I would never see you again, after I got called back into the service. Sometimes at night here, when it's dark and I realize how far away we are from each other, sometimes it's hard to not let a tear slip out. I don't think I'd admit that to anyone but you, Lorelai. So, my dad and I are really similar guys, and I think I understand him better because of that tender moment I had walked in on as a boy.

I was thinking about how much my dad really did confide in my mom. He loved her deeply, of course, but he sort of also lost his confidant - his best friend. That's what you are to me, and I was an idiot for thinking I needed to walk away from you.

Rereading this letter ... this distance has meant a lot of awful things for us, but I just realized one good thing. I've been able to do a lot of thinking, and I finally understand what the most important things in my life are. We'll make it through and we'll be better for it.

Love,

Luke

_From shipyard to sea, From factory to sky  
From rivet to rifle, from boot camp to battle cry  
I wore the mask up high on a daylight run  
That held my face in its clammy hand  
Crawled over coconut logs and corpses in the coral sand_

October 20th, 2006

Lorelai,

I used to play war games in the back yard with Bootsie before he decided I wasn't cool enough to be friends with anymore. We were just seven years old, chasing each other around late one night with fake guns made out of sticks. It was one of those moments in my life where everything just stuck in my memory. That doesn't happen often, and usually those moments aren't always significant, but for some reason, they stick. It was twilight, mid-summer, and the lightning bugs had all just come out. You could see them all flickering about. The air was thick with humidity, but we didn't care. It sort of felt like you were walking on the bottom of the ocean, with the way the day turned blue before going black into the night.

I can still see this little droplet of sweat going down Bootsie's cheek. I can still feel the welt he left on my side when he beaned me with his gun. I can still smell the fresh cut grass and the whiff of wild buttercups drifting through the air. I can hear the bull frogs squaking in the lake and the odd noise of grasshoppers in the forrest. I remember running and laughing, chasing Bootsie, throwing my acorn grenades at him. Grass stains on our knees, and hair gone askew - we were in our element.

I think my dad, granddad Lochlan, and granddad Lucas were sitting on the back porch of the big, old house, sharing a beer. I remember seeing mom through the kitchen window, watering to her plants on the bay windowsill. It must have been pretty late since it was twilight in summer, and thinking back ... I don't think I'm going to let our kids out so late. We probably should have been in bed! So, as I said, Bootsie and I were playing war in the back yard. Granddad Lochlan had just told us a bit about the war, so we were just being boys playing our war games.

It was just a happy moment, I guess. Nothing really significant happened. I wish sometimes that I could go back there - with my dad, my mom, and my two granddads at the big, old house. (I could probably live without having Bootsie there). I felt safe and loved, like I could have done anything or been anyone. If only I'd known that in just twelve years, it'd just be me.

Sometimes when I go back there and think about those old times, I get a little worried. My dad died at fourty-five - when I was twenty – and my mom when she was only thirty-four, and I was twelve. They were adults, they were _old_. Now, I'm older than my mom was and almost as old as my dad. I get scared sometimes because I wonder if I'm on borrowed time. It's been a big part of why I never talk about them, but I guess holding it all inside isn't doing me any favors, either.

I'll do everything I can to make sure I live past eighty with you, Lorelai. I guess the idea of growing old might scare some people, but it only excites me to think you and I will do it together.

Love,

Luke

_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo doesn't capture the skin  
From the shock of a shell or the memory of smell  
If red is for Hell  
The war was in color  
_

October 22nd, 2006

Lorelai,

We're still cut off and I've been sent on an escort mission with Sean. It's a little rougher out here and hot as hell in the desert. I wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but I feel like I should be able to tell you anything. So I'll tell you that I'm scared. Having you at home makes me more fearful, I think, but it's all right. I would be an idiot if I wasn't afraid. You know as well as I do that it's dangerous out here. The fear can only make me more cautious.

Sean snores like a freight train. Worse than Jess ever did.

Do you remember when the Independence Inn caught fire - of course you remember - I mean, do you remember spending the night in my apartment? God, I was so happy to have you there, and I didn't want to admit it, not even to myself. I always wondered why you left before I woke up the next morning. That was another moment that I'll always carry with me. You telling me about that dream … I can still see the faint blush on your cheeks.

Sometimes I look back and wonder what the hell was stopping me all those years from just grabbing you and kissing you. I mean, I guess I was scared that you'd reject me or that you'd stop coming into the diner. You were my best friend - my only true friend, for all those years. My life, after my dad passed away, there wasn't much to it, and I was really angry for most of it. But you walked through that door, and I forgot about being a miser. I think I was afraid that if I told you how I really felt about you, I'd scare you away and go back to being that guy again. That guy I couldn't help from being. A guy that I really hated.

I think I need to tell you that I'm sorry that I never did ask you out before the test run or tell you how I felt sooner. I think you deserved more than I gave you then. And I'm sorry for trying to walk away from you when I got called back into service. I thought I was doing you a favor, at least, a favor in the long run. God, Lorelai, the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you. So thank you for fighting for us, because you know how I can be an idiot at times, and I need you to be my conscience. You make me a better man, and I am damn proud of it.

Love,

Luke

_I held the canvas bag over the railing  
The dead released, with the ship still sailing,  
Out of our hands and into the swallowing sea  
I felt the crossfire stitching up soldiers  
Into a blanket of dead, and as the night grows colder  
In a window back home, a Blue Star is traded for Gold.  
_

October 26th, 2006

Lorelai,

This is God-damned ridiculous. I got my new laptop today, and I can't use the damn thing because we're still offline. I wish I could get you a note. I'm okay … We're okay. God, I hope what happened the other day didn't go to press. I hope you didn't hear it. I hate to think that I'm causing you to worry. Sean and I were on that escort mission, and a soldier walking next to one of the caravans stepped on an ICB - a land mine.

You don't need to worry. I'm fine; we're both fine. I had seen one person die in my life before that day. I was at school when my mom had the stroke, but I watched my dad wither away in the hospital. This was different. The soldier was gone the second he stepped on it, and the force threw the RangeRover next to it into the brush in the desert. When Sean and I saw it happen, I think we sort of went to a primitive place in our brains where we didn't think, we just reacted. It was … God, Lorelai, I don't think I can go into details. I wish so much that I could just see your face right now. I just want to bury my face in your lap and close my eyes. We lost two of our guys in the truck, and the other two were air-lifted to a hospital.

I had blood on my face, I guess. I didn't realize until a medic pulled me aside. I guess a piece of shrapnel hit me on my forehead so I have a few stitches. I hope you get this letter before our next Skype thing so I don't scare you when you see me. I'm a little black and blue, but they said it wasn't bad. Heads just bleed and bruise more than other places on your body. Sean, the damn kid, didn't have a single scrape on him.

It did mean that we got to sit in an air conditioned medic unit for a day while they checked us out. I hadn't felt air conditioning since I left the US, so it was a nice break, but definitely not worth the price we had to pay.

I'm never gonna forget those guys. They were just kids, hardly out of high school.

I still don't know why we're here.

Love,

Luke

_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo doesn't capture the skin  
When metal is churned. And bodies are burned  
Victory earned  
The War was in color_

October 30th, 2006

Lorelai,

If all goes as planned, I can send this letter out today. I got your letters, I'm glad to hear that Rory is doing well at Yale and that she's excited about the baby. She sent me a package with granola bars and protein powder. Tell her I say 'Ha ha.' I also got a package from Jess and his buddies at the book shop. They sent a set of body armor, which I am now, more than before, extremely relieved to have.

I am really glad to hear that everything with the baby is looking good. You asked me if I would want to know if it were a boy or a girl. I think I do. I have to confess that I have already started to think about baby names.

You're three months along now … The first trimester is over? You said that you wanted to start telling people then. How do you think you're going to tell the town? I think I'm going to tell Jess and Liz in my next letter to them, if that's okay?

God, Lorelai, I can't wait to hear your voice again.

I love you and I miss you,

Luke

_Now I lay in my grave at age 21  
Long before you were born  
Before I bore a son  
What good did it do?  
Well hopefully for you  
A world without war  
A life full of color  
_

Luke,

I received your letter today. It was a God-send. You were right; I was out of my mind with worry because I did see the news. I've been a faithful watcher of CNN these days, I have it on constantly in my office. Anderson Cooper doesn't bring a lot of comfort to your pregnant fiancee, but I don't think I can turn it off. You're constantly on my mind, and it's scary to hear about the things you've encountered over there, but I'm relieved that you feel you can tell me. I'm here for you. I know it's hard for you to be a part of this war.

So tell me whatever you need to. My arms ache to reach out to you. It's like you're still here, but I can't touch you. Some days I go into the diner and the minute I cross the threshold, my heart skips a beat, and I think, for some reason, that you'll be standing there behind the counter. I know you aren't, that you won't be there, but for some reason my heart doesn't want to believe it. It does hurt - this weird ache in my heart and the pit of my stomach. I would give almost anything to get you back here so I don't have to feel it anymore. While you are gone, I've decided that I'm going to cherish that feeling, because I know it still means you're alive and loving me back, even if it's from three thousand miles away. That maybe sounded a little crazy, but you've gotten pretty good at interpreting my crazy thoughts.

Here's a not-so-subtle segue ... I love hearing about your family, Luke! I can't believe I knew so little. Today, after reading your letters, I was in the diner missing your coffee (don't worry, I wasn't drinking Caesar's), and somehow got to talking with Patty and Babette about your grandparents and their exploits. I think I almost lost bladder control! I was in pain from laughing so much. It was the first time I'd really laughed like that in over three months.

That was a really good day.

And it just kept getting better. I got some exciting news that afternoon, and I have been trying to come up with a special way to tell you. So I think I'm going to do it like this:

Two heartbeats.

Skype me now, baby!

Love you and miss you,

Lorelai

_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo never captured my skin  
Once it was torn from an enemy thorn  
Straight through the core  
The war was in color_


	6. The Longest Time

**When The Day Met The Night**

**Chapter 6**

**The Longest Time**

**A/N - This chapter's song is **_**The Longest Time**_**by Billy Joel. I had my friend Cameron beta this one for me :D**

_If you said goodbye to me tonight_

_There would still be music left to write_

_What else could I do_

_I'm so inspired by you_

_That hasn't happened for the longest time_

"Lorelai!" Luke's voice came husky, happy and loud through the computer speakers.

"Luke," Lorelai responded softly, an ecstatic smile upon her face.

"Two, is it true? Two? Twins?" Luke asked with laughter in his voice.

Too happy for words, Lorelai merely nodded excitedly, her smiling eyes filling with tears.

"You're happy about this?" he asked, grinning.

Lorelai continued her fierce nodding, "_So_ happy."

"A two-fer."

Once Lorelai was able to clear her vision, a shocked gasp escaped her lips. "Oh, Luke, your face."

Luke's ears flushed red and his heart rate picked up. Through the grainy video feed, Lorelai could see that his left eye was still swollen and yellow from partially faded bruises. There was a small scab on his puffy cheek bone where the skin had broken and an obvious line of ten stitches above his left eyebrow. "Oh, yeah, well... it doesn't hurt so much, and the stitches come out tomorrow. And I can see out my eye now."

With the last statement, Luke tried to wink from that eye, causing him to wince instead. Lorelai could hear him swallow and made a conscious effort to focus on his eyes and not that gruesome gash on his forehead.

"They thought I might have broken my cheek bone," Luke admitted. "It didn't hurt, but I guess I was in shock, too."

"That's why you were in the med-bay-place?"

"Yeah," Luke said, swallowing again. "I had to get an x-ray."

"Would they have..." Lorelai began, squeezing her eyes shut. "Would they have sent you home?"

"I don't know, but I felt a little morbid, I was kinda hoping it was broken. I mean, I know some guys get sent back when they're hurt, but they also send a lot of them to a military hospital in Germany until they get better."

"Oh, God," Lorelai said, feeling a little faint. "I don't want to hope that you get hurt, but I want you home. I want you home _now_."

"I know, Lorelai, I know," Luke softly agreed, swallowing again. "I feel the same way."

_Once I thought my innocence was gone_

_Now I know that happiness goes on_

_That's where you found me_

_When you put your arms around me_

_I haven't been there for the longest time_

The crunch of gravel could be heard over the heavy roar of an engine, the thick tires guiding them along the road behind another vehicle. Luke sat in the back seat of the humvee next to Sean McCann, bouncing his knee to the roar of Queen's _Bohemian Rhapsody_ playing over the stereo. Both Luke and Sean were enjoying the trip across the desert as it provided them with a temporary reprieve - sitting in an air conditioned vehicle for a few hours at a time. Sean regarded Luke with a cocky grin, Sean's eyes were shielded with mirrored Oakley sunglasses that Luke could see his own reflection in. Behind Sean's head, Luke could see the blazing desert, crystal clear blue sky and bright shining sun that was almost blinding.

"Scaramouch, Scaramouch!" one of the soldiers in the front seat, Larry, belted out in a high pitched voice.

"Will you do the Fandango?" the driver, Mac, joined in.

Luke, Sean, Larry and Mac all shared a chuckle and Larry reached forward to turn the music down.

"Did you guys ever see _Wayne's World_? I always think of that scene they're in the ca-"

There was a loud concussive noise that suddenly moved through their humvee with such force that it would have felt like the first drop of a roller coaster, had anyone in the truck been paying attention. They were distracted by the explosive force of an ICB throwing the truck in front of them into the air with a billowing cloud of fire, smoke and sand. The second the vehicle in front of them hit the ground, the men in Luke's truck realized that their windshield was broken. Luke noticed blood on Larry's arm, but didn't waste a moment before flinging the door open and bounding towards the flames of the toppled humvee.

He thought fleetingly that that kid, Charlie? Chuck? had been walking next to the other truck when the explosion happened. He'd tell Sean to look for him, if he saw him. There was movement in the downed vehicle and nothing was going to stop him before he got those men out. Something was dripping into his eye, but he brushed it away as he ran.

One of the doors was forced open from the pressure of the upturned truck and Luke pulled it farther back with every ounce of himself. He suddenly noticed that it didn't make any noise when he pulled and realized he was almost deaf from the blast. No matter, he'd worry about that later. In the truck, Matty, the ginger kid from the south, was blinking wearily at him, upside down, still safely tucked away with his seatbelt jammed. Luke pulled at it until he noticed Sean over his shoulder with his KA-Bar knife, cutting the thick material of the belt.

"Chuck?" Luke shouted to Sean, as he hauled the soldier from the truck. Sean merely shook his head and ran around to the other side of the burning wreck.

There was a hand, colored red and black, sitting lazily with its palm up, attached to a wrist coming from out of the shattered passenger side window. Luke noticed it, breathed deeply in preparation for what he'd soon see, and crouched to look in the window. That blonde kid, Michaels? He was laying on the roof of the truck, completely still. Luke had to turn around and eject the scant contents of his stomach before he could drag Michaels out.

Kevin, it was definitely Kevin, Kevin Michaels, opened his emerald green eyes when Luke settled him against a rock a few feet away. Luke sent up a quick prayer of thanks and smiled at the kid.

"Danes, right?" Michaels croaked, before losing his breath in a coughing fit. The teen grimaced and moved his disturbingly limp hand against his abdomen. He looked at the hand and casually remarked, "well that doesn't work anymore."

"Just sit still, kid, help is on the way," Luke said, nervously looking around at the other men who were tending to the rest of the wounded.

"Tell Lucy, just tell her I'm sorry," Kevin said to Luke, eerily calm and collected.

"I'm not gonna have to," Luke shouted, before he winced and realized his hearing was almost completely recovered.

"Just tell her Kev's sorry, man," the soldier implored through another cough. His head drooped and his breathing stopped.

"No," Luke half-sobbed, leaning over his fallen comrade, shaking his shoulders. "No, you're gonna tell Lucy yourself! You bastard!"

Luke sat back as if his energy had all but drained away. That dripping in his eye blurred his vision again, and he swiped at it, finally noticing that his hand was covered in blood.

Suddenly, darkness encompassed him, and two tearful, bloodshot eyes snapped open. There he was, on a cot in a musty military issue canvas tent, dripping with sweat, veins throbbing from anxiety. The dregs of the dream were still pulsing through his system and he wondered if that was what Hell was like.

_Maybe this won't last very long_

_But you feel so right_

_And I could be wrong_

_Maybe I've been hoping too hard_

_But I've gone this far_

_And it's more than I hoped for_

Luke was there, standing tall with his white hat behind a crowd of reuniting families. He spotted her and grinned so wide that his smile almost left his face. Lorelai pushed through the crowd to get to him. She didn't want to waste a single second more outside the security of his arms. He was close, she could smell him, like melted cheese, coffee and burgers, mixed with that spicy musk that was just him. He just stood there unmoving, with his cocky grin, waiting for her to come to him.

Well, she'd let him have it later, _after_ she'd had him naked in bed for a few hours. She let her eyes drift down his body for a moment, felt a shiver go through her system and locked her eyes back on his beautiful blue eyes. He chuckled and opened his arms, ready for her to fall into them. The rest of the crowd was gone and she was laughing and crying, almost hysterical.

He must have been a foot in front of her, those outstretched arms beckoning her forward. But he stayed there, she was running now, not willing to stop and lose him again. He opened his mouth to say something and an annoying ringing noise escape his lips.

She stopped, gaping at his mouth, it sounded a lot like her cell phone. She thought to herself, _Luke's mouth rings just like my phone_... And then she woke up with a start.

Heart pounding, as it always seemed to do when she was jostled from a dream, she reached for her phone and flipped it open before checking to see who called.

"Hello?" she asked groggily.

"Lorelai?" Luke's voice came through the receiver, it was choked and breathless.

"Luke, are you okay?" she asked, sitting up, suddenly in a panic.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "Did I wake you up?"

Lorelai could hear him swallow across the line and gripped her phone tighter. "It's okay, it was just a nap, I was-Luke, hon, what's wrong?"

"Just an awful dre-... I was, I was... I was there again, after the ex-explosion," he told her, his voice rasping, choked with tears.

"Oh, babe," she said softly. "From when you got hurt?"

"Yeah," he said with a great exhale. "When it happened I, it was so loud that we, uh, I mean, me, I couldn't hear. The-the windshield br-broke and we were okay, I thought, I mean, the first thing I thought, we were okay."

"I know, I'm so glad," Lorelai reassured him, her own tears falling softly now.

"L-Larry h-had a um, he got some shrapnel in his, his arm. And I j-jumped out of the truck, I-I don't think there was... Chuck, he was gone. And, this kid from Sa-Savannah," here he stopped and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Lorelai. I don't want to upset you."

"It's okay, Luke," she responded, sniffling. "Tell me, Luke. It's okay, tell me."

"Matty was from Savannah and he reminded me of that... that movie you made me watch a dozen times, with that guy, Ron Butler-"

"Rhett. _Gone with the Wind_."

"Yeah, he talked like them. And, I just, I wasn't thinking. I just tried to yank him out but then Sean cut the seatbelt and we dragged him out. And saw—I mean," he swallowed. "The kid in the front seat, I thought he was d—he looked like he was . . . but then I got him out and he opened his eyes. And I thought, thank you God, I don't have to watch this kid die, he's not dead, thank God he's not dead!"

"Babe..." Lorelai whispered, trying to stop him, her own heart breaking along with his.

"And he—Kevin, his name is—_was_, he tried to smile and said that I had to tell Lucy he was sorry. He was just a kid, Lorelai. He had a mom and a dad, his sister, Lucy, and probably grandparents, a girlfriend, friends. They don't get to see him anymore. Nobody does." At 'nobody' Luke let out a last sob and settled down a bit, just breathing into the phone.

"Babe," Lorelai said again, gasping with him. "I'm sorry, I wish I was there with you, to hold you. I'm sorry."

"I just needed to hear your voice," he told her, his voice a little clearer. "I guess I was still a little in shock. I didn't think . . . dreaming about it, I didn't think that would happen to me. I get it now though, Grandad Lochlan used to shout out in his sleep sometimes. My dad said the war never really left him. I get it now."

"We'll get through it, we've got each other. Um, I'm Cher, you're Sonny, you know: _I've Got you Babe_." When she mentioned the song name she sung it out with perfect pitch.

Luke exhaled, emitting a Luke-Danes-grunt that still had a bit of weariness at the edges. "Isn't that the woman that sounds like a guy?"

Lorelai laughed. "Fine, I'll be Sonny."

"I think I'm goin' back to bed. Love you," Luke said softly, letting out a jaw-cracking yawn.

"I love _you_ babe!" Lorelai said a moment later, singing to the same tune as before.

"Lorelai?" he asked, after a beat.

"Hmm?"

"Just... thanks," Luke said smiling, the light almost reaching his eyes.

"I'll always be here," she explained, echoing his own words from the years before. Luke settled himself down in his cot, with the cell phone still pressed to his ear. He listened to her breathing for a minute, taking comfort in its steady consistency before drifting off.

_Who knows how much further we'll go on_

_Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone_

_I'll take my chances_

_I forgot how nice romance is_

_I haven't been there for the longest time_

"So... Romance novels?" Sookie asked incredulously, as she tossed chopped off bits of celery into a bowl.

"Yeah, it's the only thing that can—you know, I _hate_ the women in those novels." In a high pitched voice, Lorelai continued, "_Lucinda was desperate to get L-Lucious back, regardless of his shady past as a-a horse-murderer-strangler-um-person-man! O-Only their love can save them!_

"It's so-UGH!" she said, making gagging faces with the last word. "But for some reason, my brain refuses to concentrate on anything else. And I swear to God, Andrew didn't say anything when I bought my last stack of tawdry novels, but I could see the look on his face!"

"I'm sure Andrew reads them in his spare time. His last girlfriend was like, two months ago. You know, at the last Dance Marathon," Sookie explained, still bustling around the busy Dragonfly Inn kitchen, barely paying attention to her current task at hand.

"Oh right, sometimes I think he just gets a new girlfriend so he can have a public breakup at the marathon."

"It _has_ happened almost every year," Sookie added with a chuckle.

"Except for that one year when he didn't have a girlfriend!" Lorelai said, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Oh," Sookie sighed, slumping her shoulders. "Poor Andrew."

"Poor Andrew," Lorelai agreed with a frown.

"But, romance novels?" Sookie asked. Theatrically, she continued, "Like you mean, the _Sheikh_ took the young stable girl and taught her the ways of sensuality and - and woman_hood_! In the hay of the... barn!"

"Well," Lorelai said softly, a blush creeping up her neck. "Some of them involve, you know," she whispered close to Sookie's ear and then emitted a small noise that sounded like _hmmanahum_.

"Ahhh," Sookie said with a sly smiling. "_Hmmanahum_!"

"Shh!" Lorelai warned, the blush creeping onto her cheeks.

"It's more though, the gallant knight saving the damsel in distress, who is too busy crying to save herself. _That's_ what really gets me, I think."

"Aw, your knight in shining armor..."

"Isn't here," Lorelai admitted with some distress.

"Is he, is Luke doing okay over there?" Sookie asked with concern.

"I told you about the bo—the thing, the accident," Lorelai began, concentrating now on the contents of the mug grasped tightly in her hands. Unconsciously, one hand went to her barely showing belly. "He uh, he called me, the other day."

"When you talked about the twins?" Sookie asked, nodding to Lorelai's midsection.

"No, this was, this was after that."

"What happened?"

"Nothing, I mean, nothing _happened_ over there since, I don't think. It's just, he was a mess."

"Oh, sweetie."

"I talked him down, and I think he feels better now, but—I just hate it, Sook."

"I know, sweetie, I hate it too."

Lorelai exhaled forcefully and sagged forward a few inches.

Sookie caught onto the slump of her friend's shoulders, and hastily moved to change the subject. "Well, you know, Jackson's sister Colleen, she's really into romance novels, as well. She told me there's a really great used bookstore in Avon that has a huge cheesy romance section, and they do trade-ins. So, you could get rid of the tawdry evidence, avoid Andrew and probably get some new ones. It's called um... _As The Page Turns_."

"Huh, great name. But Avon, that's pretty close to Hartford..."

"I think a used book store spilling over with romance novels is the last place you'll find Emily Gilmore."

Lorelai snorted. "With the last few months I've been having, I wouldn't be so surprised."

"We both have tomorrow morning off, we'll go together."

"Sook, do you really want to take your pregnant and depressed friend to a random cheesy romance novel store to indulge her insane habit, which she admits to being completely insane, just to make her feel better?"

"Well when you put it that way, I can't think of anything I'd rather do."

_I had second thoughts at the start_

_I said to myself_

_Hold on to your heart_

_Now I know the woman that you are_

_You're wonderful so far_

_And it's more than I hoped for_

"Ooh, here's one about a Sheikh!" Sookie exclaimed with a giggle. In _sotto voce_, she continued, "_The Sheikh's Command_: _Aid worker Nikki Hunt only wanted to ask Sheik Zakir Al Arif for safe passage across his war-torn country. She never expected to be taken prisoner by the handsome, secretive sheik. Or to be attracted by the lust his dark stare set off in her—a lust as hot as the Sahara._"

Lorelai was almost beside herself. "I don't know if I could resist a lust as hot as the Sahara!"

With a small whoop of excitement, Sookie tossed the novel onto the quickly growing pile in their shopping basket. "At fifty cents a paperback," Lorelai commented, "it's hard not to."

"Ooh, dirty!" Sookie called excitedly, moving onto the next book in front of her. "Hey, Lorelai! This one has a man in a kilt on the cover! You know, easy access!"

"Ha!" Lorelai squeaked, before grabbing her abdomen. "Ooh! Full bladder, don't make me laugh!"

"No, but look," Sookie managed to say between giggles. "_Devil in a Kilt! Linnet MacDonnell, bartered as a bride to her father's long-sworn enemy, Highlander Duncan MacKenzie, had no choice but to enter a marriage with a man rumored to have murdered his first wife and said to possess neither heart nor soul!_ _How dare she defy him, and tempt a devil like him to feel what he feared most of all-love!_ And-and look! He doesn't wear a shirt!"

Lorelai, standing before her convulsing friend with wide eyes, swung the already full shopping basket against her knees. "Toss it in, please," she said primly.

"I get that one first," Sookie said, sobering.

"Okay, Mrs. MacKenzie," Lorelai laughed at her friend, before swinging her arm around Sookie's shoulder and walking her to the checkout counter.

"W-wait," Sookie said seriously, stopping.

"Huh?" Lorelai asked, spinning around.

"_D-Diner Girl_," Sookie sputtered, pointing to her right.

Lorelai gasped, her breath caught in her throat when she saw the book in question. A pregnant woman graced the cover, with the father of her child kneeling before her, kissing her swelling womb.

"We'll get this one too," Sookie whispered as she grabbed for it and tossed it in with the rest.

_I don't care what consequence it brings_

_I have been a fool for lesser things_

_I want you so bad_

_I think you ought to know that_

_I intend to hold you for the longest time _

"I'm sorry that I haven't been able to talk to you," Luke said, looking into his lap, before meeting Lorelai's eyes through the screen. "Things have been a little crazy here since the—well, the, you know."

"Yeah," Lorelai said softly, picking at a stain on her jeans. "So," she continued, "I have something to show you."

Luke grinned when he saw her stand and pull her shirt up. A small bulge was visible, which Lorelai proudly ran her hand over. "Twins make you pretty big, pretty fast," she told him, smiling.

"Wow," Luke said in exhale. "That's incredible, Lorelai."

"How's your forehead?" Lorelai asked, lowering her shirt and sitting down again. She leaned closer to the screen to see the scar above his eyebrow. Obligingly, Luke leaned forward to display the puckered scar tissue, two inches long with dots along the edges where the sutures had been placed.

"It feels fine, just a little itchy. The doc said I'd probably have a scar but that it'd fade, so it isn't so noticeable. I'm glad all the bruises are gone though," he told her, smiling. "I looked like my fiancee beat me up."

"I wanted to," Lorelai admitted, laughing. "Mmm. So, Luke, I've been thinking."

"Try not to hurt yourself," Luke said teasingly.

"Ha, funny man. Anyway, seriously, before we know it, it's gonna be two babies, Rory, me and you. In this two-bedroom house. I mean, I love this house, but-"

"It's small," Luke said, cutting her off.

"Yeah, for these two and then any others that might come along..."

"I know how much you love that house, maybe we could expand again."

"Not without you here to supervise the work," Lorelai told him, shaking her head, her gaze focused back to the stain on her jeans. "Plus, I can't be around the paint fumes."

With a huff, she sat back, body slumped in defeat. "Maybe we just have to wait until you come back. If we bought another house, we'd just have to do a ton of work on it anyway."

"Well," Luke said, desperate to ease the tension he could see in her shoulders. "There's Big House..." he confessed, drifting off.

"Big House?" Lorelai inquired, leaning closer to the screen.

"Yeah, where I grew up, Granddad Williams' house."

"You _own_ a house, Luke?" Lorelai asked incredulously.

"Technically, I guess, they left it to me. It was just—I couldn't deal with things, after my dad died. So, a realtor manages it for me and takes a cut of the rent. I just, I tried pretty hard to forget about it. I don't make a lot of money on it, after taxes and repairs, but I couldn't let it go."

"Oh, Luke," Lorelai whispered. "Where—which house is it?"

"It's the big blue one on Pear St, it's got a large white deck in the front with latticework along the top. Three stories, with a sort of large bay window protrusion, a little like a tower, on the right side on all three floors. And like I wrote, it's got a giant back yard with a screened in back porch."

"That..." Lorelai said, drifting off into memory. "Pear St, Luke, that house is next door to Sookie and Jackson! That house is beautiful!"

"It's actually a lot like their house, but bigger. It _would_ be perfect for us," he admitted, a catch in his throat. "I'm sorry I didn't mentione it before, I kinda told Liz I sold it after dad died..." he told her, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's got something like five bedrooms, three and half bathrooms, a giant basement, we used to have a pool table down there..."

"Hon, would you be okay with this?"

Luke sat back, sighing. "Before my dad died, I always thought I'd raise a family there too. That or the Twickham house," he admitted with a blush and a smile. "I didn't think I would be able to, to move back there, but now that I've had a chance to think about it, yeah, I think I'd be proud to raise my family there."

"I want to see it."

"It still needs a lot of work, there's an old couple there now I think, the bathrooms at least needs to be updated."

"Luke," Lorelai said, cutting off his rambling. She met his eyes with an encouraging smile. "I think this is it. I actually chose the blue for this house based off of the blue on that one."

"My mom's eyes," Luke said, looking into his lap blushing, his own lips mirroring her smile. "That's how my grandfather chose that color, so we always kept it that same blue."

"Your eyes must be the same blue as your mom's," Lorelai whispered from across the ocean.

"I'll call the realtor tomorrow, we'll figure it out."

_I don't care what consequence it brings_

_I have been a fool for lesser things_

_I want you so bad_

_I think you ought to know that_

_I intend to hold you for the longest time _

**A\N - The romance novels are all real! But I haven't read any of them. I must admit, the last one, **_**Diner Girl**_**, sounds super cute :)**


	7. After The Storm

**When The Day Met The Night**

**Chapter 7**

_**After the Storm**_

**A/N - Hey readers, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Thank you for the reviews, you've made writing easier! I plan to have this story finished soon, it seems the words are pouring out of me like water. And I do like to please ya :D**

**In lieu of that though... I am afraid I have some bad news. First, I need to credit the Little_Details community on LiveJournal for providing me with information in the Marine Corps. Basically, a lot of the things I needed to happen in this story, well, they don't happen with the Marines. So Luke is now Army, and I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion!**

**I also wanted to thank Lulu for pointing out the fact that the town would most definitely know about Luke owning the house. And also about Liz asking about her half if he sold it. Watch as I try to work around that!**

**Song is After the Storm by Mumford & Sons. I recommend you buy their entire Sigh No More album, it's so awesome.**

**And as always, Jewel is an amazing Beta and I cannot live without her!**

_**Holy long author note, Batman!**_** If you haven't fallen asleep yet, you can read the story now! ;O**

_And after the storm,_

_I run and run as the rains come_

_And I look up, I look up,_

_on my knees and out of luck,_

_I look up._

"I cannot believe you are insisting that I participate in this vile activity," Michel Gerard snarled, a swollen foot clasped firmly in his lap. With a look of extreme disgust on his face, he continued to apply pressure to the sole of the appendage.

"Oh, come on Michel, you're so good at it! Gaah, that feels _so_ good. Uuuhhh..."

"You will not make sex noises while I do this!" he demanded with a stubborn tilt of his chin. He removed his hands from her foot and crossed his arms defiantly.

"Fine, fine! We'll listen to Celine in quiet, just don't stop!" Lorelai begged with a desparate, pleading smile playing across her face.

"Fine, but we must play 'I Love You, Goodbye'again because you interrupted it."

"Gah, fine, but you have to do both feet!"

"Deal," Michel conceded, returning his hands to the job of massaging Lorelai's aching arches. "I cannot believe you fit yourself through the door today..."

"Nice segue there, bub ... And thanks for the compliment. I don't already feel like an elephant."

"Sookie told me the gestational period for an elephant is tw-"

"Twenty-two months, I _know_," Lorelai grumbled before leaning back in relaxation from Michel's bone-crushing pressure on her soles. "Sookie informed me of that gem as well."

"Will your nursery be filled with tartan patterns if it is boys?"

"What tar-? Oh, haha, funny, Michel."

_Night has always pushed up day _

_You must know life to see decay _

_But I won't rot, I won't rot _

_Not this mind and not this heart, _

_I won't rot. _

"My God, Mom, this house is beautiful!"

"Isn't it? It's going to need some work, and the Thortons have _just_ started to move their things out. It probably won't be ready until after the babies are born," Lorelai explained in the large parlor of Big House, her hands resting on her eighteen-week-sized stomach.

"Yeah, but it'll be worth it. _And_ now you don't have to buy a house, plus you won't have a mortgage payment anymore."

"Yeah," Lorelai agreed, smiling. "I just love these latticed archways down here. Luke said his grandfather was a carpenter and carved all these little details himself."

"Wow, really?" Rory asked her mother, moving closer to one of the archways to inspect the intricate detail. "Mom, this is … This looks like-"

"My chuppah."

"Wow," Rory whispered in awe. "Luke copied the goat exactly! Didn't you say Luke hadn't even stepped in here in like twenty years?"

"Yeah," Lorelai said softly.

"He's so dreamy!" Rory said in a high-pitched voice, pretending to swoon.

"Oh, stop!" Lorelai told her daughter, laughing. "Come see the rest of it!"

Lorelai led Rory through the parlor into the large kitchen, wall papered with giant fruits and vegetables. The counter tops were all old, worn, and stained granite, but the appliances were fairly up-to-date.

"The wallpaper will need to go, of course. Luke already warned me about this. His grandparents really liked theming rooms with gaudy wallpaper. And the appliances belong to the Thortons, so we'll have to get some new stuff. Luke was pretty excited about it, though. He's been an online super-shopper."

"He is getting to be quite the computer nerd," Rory commented, running her hand across the old countertop. "This is so cool."

"Apparently," Lorelai said, continuing in a macho voice, "they don't make 'em like this anymore."

"Oh, boys and their countertops!" Rory said cheerily. "I can't believe we never knew he owned this house!"

"Yeah, of course, once I found out and asked Patty about it, it was like _Luke's Dark Day_ all over again."

"Luke's Dark Day all over again?"

"Yeah, just the fact that I never knew about it until it happened. Patty was all, 'Of course he owns that house, dear. We knew he could _never_ sell it.'"

"So weird ... So where's my room?"

"Oh! Lets go upstairs!"

Big House had three stories, as Luke had described. Four of the five bedrooms were on the second floor and a third bedroom was nestled snuggly in the remodeled attic next to a large storage space. When Lorelai and Rory found themselves on this remodeled third floor, Rory couldn't contain her excitement.

"I had no idea there was a little kitchenette up here! And a full bathroom! Mom, this is amazing."

"Yeah, Luke's parents had set this up for his granddad, Lucas, when they moved in with him. So I was thinking this could be your space, if you want. You could also take one of the rooms downstairs, but we thought you'd like this."

Rory was perusing a large shelf of old books near the tiny attic window that sat before a padded window seat. At her mother's words she plopped down onto the window seat. "Wow, Mom, I would love this! I could fit all my books up here!"

"These," Lorelai told her, gesturing towards the antique novels that lined the left wall, "are your future great-grandfather Lucas', and Luke said he wanted you to have them."

"What?" Rory asked, her jaw dropping. "Mom ... there's a first edition _Moby Dick_ in there."

"Yeah, and apparently a super old _Robinson Crusoe_ that Luke used to love as a kid. Lucas Williams went to UConn for Literature before he opened the hardware store. Interesting man."

"Mom, is Luke sure about this?" Rory asked, fingering the gold leaf of one of the books. "These books are ... These should stay in the family."

"Sweets," Lorelai said, moving to sit next to her daughter. "_You're_ part of the family. When Luke gets back, he's not just going to have two toddlers waiting for him. He's going to have a daughter."

"Mom," Rory whispered, her eyes filled with tears. "I'm _so_ happy it's Luke."

Lorelai moved to wrap her arms around Rory. "I know, hon, I know," she soothed while smoothing down Rory's hair.

"He better come home in one piece."

Lorelai nodded in agreement, struggling to keep her own tears at bay.

"You miss him?" Rory asked, turning towards her mother.

"_So_ much," Lorelai managed to whisper before losing her words in the tears that slid down her cheeks.

_And I took you by the hand _

_And we stood tall, _

_And remembered our own land, _

_What we lived for. _

"I didn't think it was possible, but I think it might be even hotter in this damn desert today than it was yesterday," Luke grumbled, pulling the collar of his fatigues off of his neck.

"Good thing we get to ride _Betty_ today!" Sean exclaimed, shoving Luke with his shoulder.

"Would you stop calling the truck that?" Luke asked, shaking his head.

"Have you got a problem riding a _Betty_?" Sean laughed. "Oh, you only want to ride _Lorelai_," At Lorelai, he raised the pitch of his voice.

"Jeez, would you stop?"

"We could name it _Lorelai_, but then I'd also be riding he-"

"McCann!" Luke practically shouted, swinging the driver's side door open forcefully. "Get in the damn truck before I drive off without you!" he added with a slam of the door.

"Heh, sorry, man. You're too easy," McCann said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "So who is this guy we're picking up again?"

"Just some politician, I guess," Luke explained, reaching into his breast pocket to pull out a small sheet of paper. "Here," he said, handing the form over to Sean.

"Man, _Khowst_? That's like an eight hour drive from Kandahar. And they want us to turn right around once we pick him up?"

"Yup," Luke said succinctly, starting the engine. "You're driving back, by the way."

"Great," Sean groaned, fiddling with the disc player. "Jimmy Buffet?" he asked, pulling a disc out. "How the heck did this thing get in here?"

Luke laughed before ripping the disk out of his hand. "Driver chooses the music." _If Lorelai isn't your passenger_, he thought as he pulled out.

"Eight hours just got a lot longer," Sean muttered under his breath to Luke's amused chuckles.

_And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. _

_And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. _

_Get over your hill and see what you find there, _

_With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair. _

Four hours outside of Kandahar, it was just past noon and the road heading north had been completely empty. Sean had been lulled to sleep by the soft thump of the truck riding over gravel and poorly paved roads. The Jimmy Buffet CD sat quiet, having ended three hours prior. Luke welcomed the silence (save for Sean's occasional snores in his sleep), happy to have the time to think.

His thoughts strayed to the discussion he'd had with his realtor about Big House. Making lists of all the renovations they'd need to do, coming up with plans on how to make sure everything worked out perfectly without him there. And _damn_ those stainless steel appliances looked nice. He'd love to cook every meal for his family on a real Viking. He wouldn't place any of the burden of the remodel of Big House on Lorelai. He knew she was already tired and uncomfortable, hardly able to handle everything she was used to doing on a daily basis.

A small flame a jealousy lit in his belly when he thought of Lorelai telling him about convincing Michel to massage her feet. He wanted to be the one to do that. He wanted to feel her belly, feel the twins kicking, hold her in his arms at night, to be there for her when she needed him. He had ideas in his mind as to how those things would go, what they'd feel like, how he'd react, but nothing would be as sweet as actually being there.

At least he didn't have to worry about Michel trying to steel his five months pregnant fiancee away from him. _Fiancee_. He should have married her before he left.

His thoughts wandered to the diner and the last conversation he'd had with Caesar. Damn the cold bananas. He was never going to be able to keep them outside of his fridge now. He should promote Caesar to Manager now, though. It'd cost him more, but the kid had already proven himself. He hoped Caesar wasn't giving Lorelai real coffee, but he trusted Lorelai to not try to take advantage of his Assistant Manager (soon to be Manager). Hopefully she was eating well. He tried to encourage his staff to make sure they gave her a side of vegetables with all of her meals after he'd found out she was expecting. Who was he kidding, though? The woman could talk herself out of Fort Knox if she wanted to. He'd talk to her about that the next time they Skyped.

It _would_ cost more to promote Caesar; he'd have to give him a raise. With all the renovations and changes, maybe he could rent out his old apartment to someone he trusted. He wondered if he even knew where Caesar lived. Well, they _were_ selling Lorelai's house, he reminded himself. That'd help, and they'd already bought a lot of new furniture after the last remodel of it. That had certainly cost him, but it had been worth it when he'd seen Lorelai's reaction. _Dammit_, he thought, realizing he'd miss her reaction to the new house when it was done. Maybe he could get Rory or Sookie to videotape it.

He chuckled to himself, thinking about how he'd become fast friends with technology since he'd left America. _That house is going to look amazing again_, he thought. Small goosebumps formed on his forearms when he imagined how proud his dad would be.

"Dammit," he muttered under his breath. He had told Liz he'd sold Big House, mostly to keep her out of it, knowing she'd probably destroy it at the time if he'd allowed her to live there with her beau of the week. She was going to be mad – that was for sure. At least his father had left the house and business specifically to Luke in his will. Maybe Lorelai would know what to say to her. He guessed that there was a chance Liz would understand if she knew Luke wanted to live in that house with his family. But really, after their dad had died, he'd been closer to wanting to burn it more than anything else. The only thing that had stopped him from selling it or destroying it was all the hard work that his family had put into it over the years.

_Well_, he mused, _it might be the one thing I can impress Emily Gilmore with_. It didn't have as many rooms as her mansion, but at least she'd know he was taking care of her daughter. He hadn't spoken to Richard or Emily since an uncomfortable Friday Night Dinner five months prior, but he'd received a few items in the mail from them. The first item was a pair of premium military issue boots that fit him like a glove. He still wondered how they knew what size his feet were and that he had high arches. The second had been an incredibly expensive diver's watch, and although Luke still hadn't stepped foot in water deeper than an inch, he wore the watch every day and was glad to have it. The last item was a pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses with chrome frames that he was currently sporting. He had to admit, everything he had received from the Gilmores had come in handy, and he was grateful for them. He'd probably even use the boots, watch, and sunglasses when he finally got back home.

He made a mental note to ask Lorelai if she knew about any of it. They were certainly items he'd needed, having not even thought of bringing a pair of sunglasses or a watch rated for the high temperatures of the desert (his own watch had died two weeks after he'd arrived due to condensation under the glass face). He made another mental note to not mention to Lorelai how expensive everything probably was.

When he got home, he'd take Lorelai and the twins on a vacation to Death Valley in California. He wanted to show her what it was like in the desert and that he was proud of what he had accomplished. His heart swelled when he thought of how proud she'd be of him.

_And now I cling to what I knew_

_I saw exactly what was true_

_But oh no more._

_That's why I hold,_

_That's why I hold with all I have._

_That's why I hold._

There she was, a tall beautiful goddess with flowing raven hair. It was as if she was a pinnacle of light that he could find with his eyes closed, always drawing him towards her. She was clad in a sun dress covered in pink and yellow daisies with her skirt fluttering behind her long legs in the wind. And dear God in Heaven, she was so sexy and so beautiful in something so simple. In one of her arms was a two-year-old girl who was wearing a sun dress matching her mother's and white patent leather Mary Jane's over perfectly white socks with lace frills at the top. The little girl's hair was the same color and curl as her mother's, but pulled back with plastic yellow barrettes. At Lorelai's feet, hand clasped in hers, was a small boy with sandy blond wavy hair in a sailor suit and blue forward facing ball cap with a Boston 'B'. His other hand was firmly gripped in his mouth. Lorelai was smiling at Luke as he came towards her, her eyes beaming with love and overflowing with tears.

Luke approached them in his blue dress uniform, beret on his head, crying and laughing himself, itching to take that woman and those babies into his arms. He couldn't believe how much their daughter looked like Lorelai and how much their son looked like him. The toddlers were shy; the boy was hiding his head in his mother's skirt and the girl soon had her face buried in her mother's neck.

His lips made for Lorelai's cheek. _God! _he thought_. I__t's so soft! I haven't felt something so soft on my lips in three years!_ Unable to speak, he wrapped his arms around his fiancee, nestling his daughter's head in his right hand, reaching down with his left to touch his son's capped head. Having his family in his arms was the most amazing feeling.

He stepped back and brushed his lips over the girl's forehead, smoothing her hair back. Crying, he said her name, and Lorelai told her he was her daddy. Luke bent forward to draw the boy into his arms and introduce himself as his daddy, saying he was sorry that he had been gone for so long. He promised to make them breakfast every morning and take them fishing at the lake whenever they wanted.

His son started to cry for his mother, and Luke's heart broke for a moment. Lorelai just smiled at him, cooed to the boy, and swapped babies. His daughter was more brazen. She grabbed his scruffy cheeks and looked him in the eyes. Luke gasped when he saw his mother's powder-blue eyes shining back at him through his daughter and kissed her chubby cheek. She giggled when his beard rasped against her skin and immediately blushed before burying her face in her father's neck.

Broken heart healed, he smiled at his Lorelai again, grabbing her hand tightly and leading her out of the military base. _Take me home,_ he'd said, inhaling the scent of freshly cleaned baby from his son and daughter and lilacs wafting from his fiancee's hair. _Ahh, the smell of home,_ he thought smiling._ And now we've got a wedding to go to._

_I will die alone and be left there. _

_Well I guess I'll just go home, _

_Oh God knows where. _

_Because death is just so full and mine so small. _

_Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before. _

Boots, polished to a reflective sheen, marching in tandem across the poorly cared for grass of the front lawn. Perfectly hemmed, ironed and pleated pants hung at the proper distance in relation to the ankle and the boots. Morning dew, recently condensed upon the unruly blades of grass, attached small droplets of themselves to the hemisphere of leather and black boot polish. Blue berets, bobbing in slow motion, both of them in unison, moving closer and closer. Like her heart beat, no matter how much she begged it to slow down, the advancing Army officers refused to listen to her silent, desperate pleas.

Not today, not this morning, not now! She begged. Her heart breaking slowly as they made the short march towards her door. That small jaunt was almost a hop, ski and jump from the driveway. She had made that short journey a million times herself and had never paid any mind to the distance or time it took her to reach the front porch stairs. And now she stared at it, awaiting her own fate, her own judgement day, wishing that the distance between the driveway and the door was a mile long.

One perfectly polished boot landed upon the paint-chipped boards of the porch._ I should have let Luke paint the porch_, she thought. Then two feet stood upon the step, then three, then four – up the few small wooden steps made by a craftsmen in what seemed forever ago. _Were the termites back?_ she wondered. _D__id__ the termites know why those Army officers were there?_ The boots reached the landing and she could see the blurred and terrifying forms of two Army Officers through the chipped glass of her arched front doorway. _Not just my _doorway_,_ she thought desperately. _Mine and Luke's! Mine and Luke's! See,_ she shouted at fate_. S__ee__,__ I can share. It's not mine anymore! It's Luke's to__o__! He can't be gone if it's his too!_

The fateful fist pounded on the door like it was an executioner's axe having already completed its task. _Bu-bump, bu-bump, bu-bump_, the knocks came, like her racing heart pushing blood through its restricted chambers. _Breath,_ she told herself_.__ If you delay it, if you pause here, he's still alive for that minute. For that moment__. L__et him live for another moment._

She made them wait on the opposite side of the door and took a moment of solace in her own imagined ignorance with her hands upon Luke's two growing babies wiggling restlessly in her womb, as if they already knew.

_And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. _

_And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. _

_Get over your hill and see what you find there, _

_With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair. _

"God dammit, you idiot! Open your fucking eyes!" Luke heard, although all he could see was black. There was a pounding on his chest and he could feel his carotid artery pumping madly in his throat.

_Open my eyes?_ he thought_. D__on't I already have them open?_ After a short internal struggle, he managed to crack his eyelids, fighting the gunk and sand that had glued them shut.

"Thank you, Jesus!" he heard Sean shout.

_Damn_, he thought,_ the sky is bright. _Immediately, he squeezed his eyes shut and raised his hand to shield his vision. "Sunglasses?" Luke croaked, envisioning Emily Gilmore garroting him for losing those precious Ray-Bans. He felt the warm frames placed on his face and opened his eyes again.

He next tried to sit up, but felt hands pushing him back down onto the warm sand of the desert. "You really don't want to do that yet," Sean told him matter-of-factly.

"And why the hell not?" Luke asked, getting irate.

"You've got a bit of bleeding down here. Just relax for a little while longer."

"Bleeding where? The hell, Sean!" Luke sat up forcefully this time and almost lost his lunch when he saw his blood soaked abdomen and bloodied left leg with his pants-leg torn away to the knee. A sharp pain shot up his spine and Luke slowly laid back, cursing whoever he could think to curse at the moment.

"Yeah, _smarticus_, as you can see, you've got some shrapnel in your gut and I think your leg is busted," Sean informed him snarkily.

"Dammit," Luke moaned. "What about you?"

"Hit my head pretty damn hard and got knocked out. Came around a few hours ago. Otherwise, I think I'm okay."

"You're the fucking invincible man, McCann. How did we end up like this? Last thing I remember is driving along the road right after we stopped for lunch."

"Much as I can tell - since I got knocked out – is we probably hit an IED on the road. The north route is supposed to be safe, but you never can tell these days."

Looking to his left and right, all Luke could see was the expanse of the desert. "Where the hell is the truck?"

"About a mile or two back. I dragged your fat ass out here. Figured it wasn't safe to hang around the road in case anyone came looking."

"Jeez, I weigh over two hundred pounds."

"I _know_. Feels like a thousand after ten minutes with your deadweight on my shoulders."

"We're gonna have to walk back, aren't we?"

"About a hundred miles to Kandahar is my guess. We were something like four or five hours out," Sean explained, working on bandaging Luke's abdomen. "But there's another small camp, probably fifty miles up the road from here. I'm thinking we can do ten miles tonight. If we can keep up that pace we could get there in maybe a week. Hopefully we'll come across a stream or something in the meantime. I took the canteens from the truck, but we're gonna run out even if we really ration the water walking _that_ far."

"I'm not sure I can do ten miles with my leg like this," Luke confessed, his heart dropping into his stomach.

"I'm gonna splint your leg in a second. It'll feel better then, although you're gonna want to die before I'm done. Danes, you're lucky I have some field medic training..." he explained, only stopping to cough the words _failed_ and _out_. Clearing his throat, he continued, "We'll start the hike at sun down. It'll be better to travel at night, just in case anyone comes along. I figure we'll loop back to the road in a few miles and hope a search party finds us sooner than that. And Danes, I'm not fucking leaving you behind, so don't even fucking say it. You've got more to go home to than I do, and I'm not gonna let you miss out on that. Plus, after this shit, you're going to make me a Godfather, and hope to God the Godmother is hot _and_ slutty."

"You get me out of this, kid, you get a room in our new house ... Did any of the flares make it?" Luke asked, gritting his teeth as Sean tied a tight knot on the bandage around his abdomen.

"One," Sean admitted grimly, setting about to find a splint for Luke's leg. "We'll use it if we see one of our guys or get within a mile or so of the base."

A few minutes later, Sean came back to Luke's side and stuck a stick in his mouth. "Bite down," he instructed. "This is gonna fucking hurt."

_And after the storm,_

_I run and run as the rains come_

_And I look up, I look up,_

_on my knees and out of luck,_

_I look up._

**A/N - And you thought I might kill off Luke! Ya'll are crazy.**


	8. Travelin' Soldier

**When The Day Met The Night **

**Chapter 8 **

_**Travelin' Soldier**_

**A/N - I was going to pick another Mumford & Sons song, but this Dixie Chicks one is sort of perfect.**

**Thank you guys for your reviews! It means a lot when you leave them. I got a general consensus from the last chapter that my dark mind stressed several people out. I am sorry for that, and I promise to please you more in the future becaue I heart you all.**

**For some current event images of the war in Afghanistan, check out the Boston Big Pic from June 2010. May our soldiers who have passed, rest in peace, and the ones still out there, may they make it home safe. (If you're squeemish, don't click to view the censured images on that site.)**

**Lastly, Jewels is the most amazing beta ever! Zombie kisses and hugs for her!**

_Two days past eighteen _

_He was waiting for the bus in his army green _

_Sat down in a booth, in a cafe there _

_Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair _

_He's a little shy so she gives him a smile _

_And he said, 'would you mind sittin' down for a while _

_And talking to me, _

_I'm feeling a little low' _

_She said, 'I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go' _

"We're gonna be okay," Lorelai said numbly, rubbing soap bubbles into her bulging abdomen. "We're…." She swallowed, "We're going to be-" A sob escaped from her throat "Okay. Okay?"

She dropped her arms into the bathwater as if they weighed a ton, let her head fall back against a towel, and clenched her eyes tightly shut. "We're going to be okay," she said again with more strength this time.

Lifting her head to look down at her womb, she rubbed her hands over it once more. "We'll hold each other up," she told her babies. "I'll tell you all about him. You'll love him and make him_ so proud_."

_Luke left everything in his will to you, Lorelai_, Liz's raspy voice played in her head. _Even the Big House, which I figured he'd never really be able to sell. He'd have wanted you and his kids to live there. It's way too big for just me and TJ._

"He wanted us to live in the house he grew up in," she explained to her belly, struggling to keep a fresh round of tears at bay. "You guys will run around in the backyard at night amongst the fireflies in summer, like your Daddy did. You'll love it so much. I'll watch you from the kitchen, and we'll ... we'll hold each other up. We'll be okay."

"Mom?" Rory's voice came through the bathroom door. "You okay in there?"

Lorelai sniffed and wiped her eyes with a washcloth. "Yeah, hon, I'll just be a minute, okay?"

"Okay, Mom, just shout if you need me. I'll be here."

"Okay ... hon," came Lorelai's reply, laced with forced sincerity. Lorelai heard how hollow her words were and squeezed her eyes shut again.

Time traveling, that's what it was. She had somehow moved from the tub, gotten dressed in her new purple cotton maternity top and sweats, and arrived in the kitchen. She found herself standing there in front of Rory, her hands on her 20 weeks pregnant belly, explaining how she needed at least a few hours to herself. She was sorry that Rory had journeyed all that way for her, only to be asked to leave, but she was unable to handle the looks everybody had been giving her. _Just a few hours_, she begged. She needed some time alone; they needed to give her that. It was hard enough as it was.

_Mom_, Rory had pleaded with her. _I lost him too_, she'd said, tears falling fast now.

Lorelai knew that everyone lost Luke, that everyone was sad, not just his fiancee – not just _her_. But something was gone – missing – from her heart, from her brain, from her body, and she didn't know what. She couldn't hold her daughter up, she couldn't be the stronger one. Whatever it was that had made her so tenacious had vanished. Maybe she'd find it again, but for that day, at the very least, she needed to not be anyone's mother. She needed to not be their grieving friend or daughter. She needed to be alone and only Luke's. Simply Luke's.

She couldn't explain that to her daughter. There was no way Rory would ever understand, not unless something like this happened to her. And she hoped to God it never happened to her.

She shot through time again and realized that she was sitting in Luke's old apartment, waking up on a pile of his shirts, just enveloping herself in the smell of him. How could he be gone? He was still here, all around her, his smell, his things, his world. She realized that she _was_ sad, more sad than before she heard the news, but ... What was it? Something wasn't right. She had thought about this moment, more than she cared to admit. She thought she'd not be able to stand or function, not be able to dress or eat. Not be able to see color or be able think ahead to the next day. The very thought of the next day without him, well, that _had_ to be indescribable. But she thought of the next day, and the day after that, and she wasn't scared, as if he was still going to eventually come home to her.

The two lives inside her were the same. They would have known for sure, before she even did. But they were still happily doing summersaults inside of her, kicking away, mercilessly hammering at her liver and bladder. Didn't she read in the baby book that they'd know? They could sense things, right?

She must have just been delusional, she surmised. Something inside of her brain must have broken when she heard the news. She wanted to believe so badly that he was alive. Wouldn't she feel him there with her, _in spirit_, if he were truly gone? Or was that just a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo that people just told each other to feel better about losing a loved one?

She _did_ feel him in that apartment, but more like in a way that he'd walk through the door in his flannel shirt and blue ball cap any minute, asking her if she wanted a burger for lunch. At the thought of this, her stomach rumbled and she could almost smell that burger. Was _that_ Luke? _No_, she almost laughed, _that's probably the diner downstairs._

Well, if she was losing her mind, she had good reason for it at least. Five months pregnant with twins, unmarried and having just lost her fiance ... She'd ponder it further over one of Caesar's burgers. She wondered if he'd still push Luke's veggies on her. She resolved that she'd take advantage of her perceived state and try for a real cup of coffee. She stopped short. That was cold, too cold. He couldn't be dead, so she was most definitely crazy, or living in a _Lifetime_ movie.

_So they went down and they sat on the pier _

_He said I bet you got a boyfriend, but I don't care _

_I got no one to send a letter to _

_Would you mind if I sent one back here to you _

"Fucking God," Sean McCann muttered, struggling to take a step. "And fucking Angels in fucking Heaven."

"That's a pretty one," Luke snarked, his voice strained.

"Shut your fucking mouth," Sean grumbled, bouncing his shoulders to adjust his grip on Luke. "Jesus Christ, not only do I have to carry your fat ass across the entire fucking Sahara, I get your fucking commentary in addition to your God-damned blood all over me!"

"Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain," Luke responded dryly, trying to hold back a chuckle for fear of the pain it would cause in his gut. He settled for a subtle shaking of his shoulders.

"Should've left your fat ass behind at the pond."

"Mud pit."

"Stop being a back seat driver, Danes!"

"Top seat ... driver."

"Ass. You know, the room in your house sounded nice, but you better fucking give me an entire suite. And a God-damned butler, a lava lamp, and a saltwater fish tank. And a Juke-box with a disco ball and fucking John Travolta in a polyester suit."

"And a blow up doll?" Luke asked, his voice fainter.

"I've already got the hot, slutty Godmother, remember?" Sean asked, stopping by a boulder that came up to his waist. "I think we're gonna take a break here, then have you try walking again."

He swung Luke off his back, propping his body against the boulder, Luke slumped disturbingly like a rag doll. "Hows your leg feel?" Sean asked.

Luke's head was sagging forward, his hands limp at his sides.

"Christ," Sean muttered under his breath, reaching to find a pulse on Luke's neck. "Just fainted again," Sean said to himself with relief before falling to his knees beside the boulder.

"If we don't find help soon," he explained to an unconscious Luke, "not sure you're gonna make it."

"If that happens," Luke rasped, before succumbing to a coughing fit, "I've been writing a letter..."

Sean, too tired to protest this time, just let his head fall back to rest again the rock.

Luke swallowed and wrapped an arm around his waist. "I don't want Lorelai to think-"

"She won't," Sean cut him off. "Get some sleep."

"Hear that?" Luke asked, his head still sagging forward.

"Those are just the voices in your head. Ignore 'em," Sean joked.

"No, I hear something..." Luke tried to explain, contorting his face in pain. "A chopper, I think."

_I cried _

_Never gonna hold the hand of another guy _

_Too young for him, they told her _

_Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier _

_Our love will never end, _

_Waitin' for the soldier to come back again _

_Never more to be alone, when the letter said: _

_A soldier's coming home _

_Lorelai,_

_I've been assigned another last minute mission, so I can't make our Skype thing tonight. I figured I'd write you a quick letter instead and have them send it along before the mail gets flown out today._

_I think we'll probably end up talking before you get this__.__ I think I'll only be gone for two days. I talked to Meghan Reinholdt, the realtor, and Tom this morning__. L__ooks like everything is set in motion. Tom is going to start as soon as the tenants move out, and he's already ordered the new kitchen appliances. I was thinking we'll probably want a desk for the office, some baby furniture__,__ and probably a new big table for the dining room. If Tom orders everything for us he can guarantee it all, so returns and replacements are easier. He told me he'd give you a catalog the next time he sees you, so just pick out whatever you want. I keep thinking we're going to need two cribs! I really love that._

_I'm sure you've already been shopping a lot lately, and your mother has probably been going crazy. I saw these really manly hats online the other da__y –__ blue with Boston Red Sox __'__B's on them, so keep an eye out for a package. You'll probably already have it when you get this. I couldn't help it__. T__hey're going to need hats__,__ right?_

_I love you and miss you,_

Luke

_PS: Tell the twins I love and miss them too._

The letter lay opened on the coffee table next to two miniature Boston Red Sox hats. Lorelai sat staring at the three items before her, rubbing her belly in soothing circles. Her eyes were blinking rapidly, and she was trying to breath steadily. She didn't want to panic, and she didn't want to start shaking again. It suddenly felt too real for her to bear. Maybe she had finally gained her senses.

The letter was so casual, so comfortable, so succinct, and _so Luke_. The thought of being a single mother again started to creep into her mind – that searing panic she'd experienced when Luke had first left and she found she was with child. She knew she was too old to do it again, especially with two babies. Maybe it was that burning anxiety that kept her from believing he was gone, from giving into what had to be the truth. Once she admitted it was really true, she'd most definitely lose it.

"Your daddy," she told her womb, still smoothing her hands over it again and again, "he really misses you," she managed to get out before gasping sobs overtook her. She had finally allowed herself to drift down into that nearly bottomless pit of sadness when a knock at the door jarred her from her thoughts.

_So the letters came from an army camp _

_In California, then Vietnam _

_And he told her of his heart _

_It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of _

_He said, 'When it's getting kinda rough over here _

_I think of that day sittin' down at the pier _

_And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile _

_Don't worry, but I won't be able to write for awhile' _

His body eventually succumbed to the extreme exhaustion that had been tearing his strength away at the edges, and Luke barely noticed as two field medics checked him out on a metal stretcher. He saw Sean on the edge of his vision, talking to someone and gesturing towards his forehead. One of the medics said something to Luke, shouted it a second time very close to his ear, but Luke could hardly ascertain what it was. He was floating very closely to the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, barely fighting any longer to pull himself to the surface. The medic shouted again and Luke blinked, still unable to make out the words over the roar of helicopter blades and the blurring of the world around him.

He fell into blackness. The last thing he was aware of was Sean McCann cursing at him, those being the only sounds following him into a darkening oblivion. He was so tired and that darkness so inviting that soon nothing existed in the world that was his dreamless sleep.

_This is what time traveling is_, he thought, when he woke up a few hours later in a stuffy green tent. He tried to turn his head to look around, but his neck twinged in pain and he settled back down with a groan. His mouth was drier than the Sahara and his eyes were crusted over with goop. He raised a sore arm to wipe his eyes and gasped at his sun burned and peeling skin. He ran his fingers slowly over his face and imagined it looked worse than his hand.

All he could see above him was the blurred green canvas of the tent, an IV bag to his right, and an empty cot across the way. The IV bag was making a comforting dripping noise, and he allowed himself to be lulled into unconsciousness by the quiet consistency of its slow _drip-drip-drip_. His dreams were consumed mostly of Lorelai, her soft breathing in his ear, as if she was sleeping snuggled next to him. He didn't know how he knew it was _her _in the dream, but somehow he was sure it was.

He was roused again some time later, he wasn't sure how long as he had lost all track of time. He was being moved by a few soldiers. One of them caught his cracked eyelids and told him they were flying to a military hospital in Germany. He had stabilized, as much as he could in the desert, and they'd operate on his leg over there and remove the rest of the shrapnel from his belly.

Luke struggled with the words but managed to say, "Sean McCann," to the soldier that had been explaining these things to him. He was told that Sean was being sent with him. He'd had a seizure earlier in the day and he also needed further testing.

"My wife?" Luke asked last, before being loaded up. He didn't even realize he'd said it, instead of Lorelai or his fiancee. The medic told him that his family would be informed that he was alive and being moved. They'd know soon.

That he was alive? Did they think he was dead? The plane took off and the increased weight of his body at liftoff caused him to drift into a fretful world of uncomfortable and feverish dreams.

_One Friday night at a football game _

_The Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang _

_A man said, 'Folks would you bow your heads, _

_For a list of local Vietnam dead' _

_Crying all alone under the stands _

_Was a piccolo player in the marching band _

_And one name read, but nobody really cared _

_But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair _

"We've found your fiance, Sergeant Danes, ma'am," the soldier told her. "He's alive and being air lifted to a hospital in Germany."

Luckily for Lorelai the Army officer was quick on his feet and caught her as she collapsed in front of him. When she was placed on the couch with a glass of water in her hands, the officer sat next to her. He apologized for the pain that had been caused to her family, and he told her that as soon as Sergeant Danes was up for it, they would have him call her. Luke had some serious injuries. There was shrapnel lodged in his abdomen and his lower left leg had been broken in several places. They would operate on him in Germany, where he had been air lifted as soon as his vitals were stable, which had been that very morning.

The doctors treating Luke had all been very confident that he would recover. The soldier couldn't comment on if Luke would be discharged or not, but in cases like this they likely were. The man that had been with Luke during the whole ordeal in the desert, Sean McCann, had carried Luke partway across the desert to get him to safety. Sean himself was in critical condition, having passed into a coma only a few hours before the both of them were air lifted to the military hospital in Germany.

Because of the confusion, most of Sergeant Danes' belongings had been shipped back to the states. Lorelai noticed a trunk sitting in the front hall and almost fainted again. This time, the soldier noticed her face grow pale and instructed her to place her head between her knees – as best as a pregnant woman could. The weightless, blackening feeling passed, and Lorelai shakily accepted a packet of information with a pained smile.

"Can I go to Germany to see him?" she asked as the soldier stood.

He gave her a kind smile and nodded. "If you can fly in your condition, ma'am, we encourage friends and family to visit. You'll find more information in that folder."

Lorelai thanked him profusely, finally feeling as though bits and pieces of herself were coming back. After she closed the door, she fell back against it, slid to the floor, and cried. He was alive, he'd be okay, and soon, he would come home.

_I cried _

_Never gonna hold the hand of another guy _

_Too young for him, they told her _

_Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier _

_Our love will never end, _

_Waitin' for the soldier to come back again _

_Never more to be alone, when the letter said: _

_A soldier's coming home _

Getting to Luke would be Lorelai's biggest challenge. He was in Landstuhl, Germany at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. She tried to figure out how to possibly fly there from the United States but was soon overwhelmed with how to manage her travel arrangements. Without thinking, she picked up the phone and dialed Emily Gilmore.

As soon as her mother's voice came on the line, Lorelai squeezed her eyes closed and explained that Luke was alive, in a hospital in Germany, and that she was trying to get over there. Her mother expressed her relief for Luke before scolding Lorelai about traveling in her condition.

Lorelai, exhausted and weary from the roller coaster of emotions she'd gone through that day already, broke down on the phone to her mother. She told Emily that she needed to see Luke, after being away from him and thinking he was dead. She needed to be with him, just in case something else happened. She knew he needed to see her, she knew he needed to touch her. She was asking her mother for help because she couldn't handle it anymore. She begged hoarsely, again and again until her mother told her to be calm.

"I'll take care of it," Emily said soothingly. "You won't need to worry anymore, Lorelai. Your father and I will take care of it."

"Mom," Lorelai said before hanging up, a small tired smile playing on her lips as she thought of Luke alive again. "I haven't told anyone yet."

"You needn't worry about that, Lorelai. We'll take care of everything. Rest now."

When Lorelai hung up the phone she fell to her bed and wasn't aware of the outside world until the enticing smell of a _Luke's_ dinner wafted up into her bedroom. Lorelai rose to her feet and made her way towards the kitchen as if she were a cartoon character, her feet hardly touching the ground as she followed the trail of the enticing aroma.

"Mom!" she said, startled, when she finally emerged from the dark hallway into the lighted kitchen.

"Lorelai," Emily responded matter-of-fact. "I couldn't get a hold of your obstetrician. This is Doctor Blackwell; she'll be doing your exam."

"Mom, why is there an obstetrician in my kitchen at eight o'clock at night?" Lorelai asked, trying not to drool at the smell of french fries and cheeseburgers, wafting up from the kitchen counter.

"Your flight leaves at 6 am and you'll need a physician's release in order to be allowed on the plane at twenty-two weeks. _Lufthansa_ outright refuses to allow women pregnant with twins beyond twenty-four weeks to fly, so you will not be able to stay long. I couldn't book a second seat on the flight so you will be going alone. I have already made contact with an obstetrician at that military hospital, _Landstuhl_. Once you arrive, he will make sure the babies are all right. Now, Lorelai, if you could please speak to Dr. Blackwell, then you can have the dinner I've brought."

Lorelai, baffled and at a loss for words, allowed the good doctor to shuffle her into the living room where a few instruments sat waiting upon the coffee table.

"I hope you weren't dragged out of your home during dinner by my mother's DAR goons," Lorelai joked to the doctor as they made their way to the couch.

"It's not a problem," the woman responded warmly. "I've worked with Mrs. Gilmore in the past, on a few hospital fundraisers. I owed her a favor."

"Wow, well, when Emily Gilmore calls in a favor, she _calls in a favor_," Lorelai said, moving to drop down onto the couch. "I warn you," she said dryly, "once I've reached the cushion, I might not be able to get back up."

Dr. Blackwell let out a chuckle and sat opposite Lorelai on the coffee table. "Actually, your mother chaired a fundraiser for a new wing in my hospital and she really made a huge difference," she explained as she started to mark off a few notes on a clipboard. "I don't think I'd be working in this state any longer if it weren't for her. Well, anyway, I happened to have a portable ultrasound in my trunk-"

"I never leave home without mine!" Lorelai quipped, hands resting comfortably on her womb.

"It's actually my husband's; he's a veterinarian. I'll just do a quick exam, and we can do the ultrasound if you're comfortable with that. It's sterilized."

Dr. Blackwell kept to her word and the exam went by smoothly. Lorelai, aside from an incessantly growling stomach, passed with flying colors. When the doctor poured the jelly onto Lorelai's belly to administer the ultrasound, Lorelai stopped her with a hand on the doctor's wrist.

"Do you mind if my mother comes in for this?" Lorelai asked softly.

"Of course not!" Blackwell responded happily, and Lorelai immediately called for her mother.

"Do you know the sex of the babies, Lorelai?" the doctor asked as Emily came in and Lorelai took her mother's hand. Emily masked the shocked expression on her face after a moment and tightened her grip.

"I don't … Things have been a little … I wasn't sure I wanted to know," Lorelai explained quickly before she got choked up. "But I-I want to know. I want to be able to tell Luke," she finished saying with a shining smile at the thought of seeing Luke.

"All right, let's see if they want to show us then, shall we?" the doctor said with a smile as she placed the ultrasound wand on Lorelai's belly and the machine began making a soft whirring noise.

Some time later, Lorelai was sitting opposite Emily in the kitchen, chowing down on her burger as if she hadn't eaten in days.

"Lorelai, really, you'll choke if you don't slow down," Emily commented, seated primly in one of the yellow kitchen chairs. There was an array of travel papers resting in front of her on the table and she was checking off a list of information on a yellow notepad.

"Mom," Lorelai said with mouth full of food. She swallowed before continuing. "Thank you. For everything. Getting the doctor here to sign a release, helping me pack, making the travel arrangements, having the driver to pick up Rory, going to _Luke's_ to get dinner … For everything."

"Oh, it was nothing," Emily told her, a slight blush flushing her cheeks.

"This wasn't nothing. It was huge, Mom. Thank you _so much_," Lorelai said, shaking her head, blinking rapidly to keep a fresh round of tears from drifting down her cheeks. "I don't know what I would have done..."

"You're a survivor. You would have been fine," Emily insisted, her eyes locked on her notepad. "I have always admired that about you," she said quietly, finally lifting her eyes to meet her daughter's. "Thank you for letting me be there tonight, when you found out."

Lorelai set her burger down so she could wipe her eyes. "W-when," she paused, squeezing her eyes closed. "When does the driver get here?"

"It should be any minute now. I'll accompany you and Rory to the airport if you'd like."

"I'd like that."


	9. Better Together

**When The Day Met The Night**

**Chapter 9**

_**Better Together**_

**A/N - Better Together by Jack Johnson.** **My beta Jewels, once again, rocks!**

**A few things that made me super late with your latest update: My poor iMac died and I fixed it! The internet died! I got a 37" 1080 LCD TV (me: O.O) and I got really into **_**Diner Girl**_** and then **_**Devil in a Kilt**_**. First book was super meh, second one was A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I *heart* Kindle editions that save me from holding books with cheesy romance covers on public transportation. **

**Thanks for all the reviews! Lovin' your reviews! :D**

_There's no combination of words_

_I could put on the back of a postcard_

_No song that I could sing_

_But I can try for your heart_

_Our dreams, and they are made out of real things_

_Like a shoebox of photographs_

_With sepiatone loving_

_Love is the answer,_

_At least for most of the questions in my heart_

_Like why are we here? And where do we go?_

_And how come it's so hard?_

_It's not always easy and_

_Sometimes life can be deceiving_

_I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together_

Two hours spent in a car with Rory and Emily, from Star's Hollow to JFK in New York City. Four hours waiting at the airport. An eight hour flight from New York to Frankfurt, Germany. Four more hours of transit to Landstuhl. All in all, Lorelai had been traveling for eighteen hours and arrived in Landstuhl at midnight, technically a whole day after she'd left. She had originally planned to go straight to Luke when she landed, but her 22 weeks belly disagreed with that notion and demanded rest. The moment she reached her hotel room – what looked like the honeymoon suite, thanks to Emily Gilmore – she collapsed on the bed and was dead to the world for the next six hours.

Lorelai arrived at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at promptly 7:30 that morning. Bundled up to counteract the January chill, she stood outside for a moment to gather her thoughts. She hadn't seen Luke in five months, hadn't spoken to him in two weeks, and he had no idea she was on her way to see him. She took some joy in the excited nervousness that roiled in her belly, rested a hand on the twins as if to get them ready to meet their father, and pushed through glass doors into the vestibule of the medical center.

When she discovered the morning receptionist did not speak a word of English, she reigned in her momentary surge of exhausted-uncomfortable-pregnant-crazy-mother and smiled politely. After a few minutes of frustrated sign language and repeating words, she was pointed in a general direction with a few Deutsch words she was sure were not in her English-to-German dictionary.

She felt it, though, as she got closer, that ball of excited nervousness spinning faster and the babies starting to squirm. "We're almost there," she told the twins with a radiant smile. "You're about to meet your daddy!"

After turning the same corner four times, she ran into an Army nurse and was walked personally to room four hundred and fifty-two. The door was closed and the nurse left, leaving Lorelai the task of opening the door to see what was behind it. She took a deep breath, exhaled forcefully, and raised a shaky hand to the knob to turn it.

There he was. Oh, _thank God_, there he was, nestled comfortably under a blue knit blanket, his left leg propped up and his face and hands an angry red. He had occasional scrapes across his face and arms, but none so bad as to need stitches. His eyes were closed and his breathing steady, accompanied by the soft blip of the machines to his left and right. Lorelai was standing at the foot of his hospital bed, taking in his appearance. She felt her knees buckle and made her way to a chair at the side of his bed as fast as her pregnant body would allow.

Luke always slept like the dead, and she smiled at the thought. _Not dead, alive._ She reached out to grab his hand but hesitated for a moment when she took in the ugly sunburn again. With a fierce scowl, she grabbed the hand quickly and looked at his face to see his reaction. He seemed to lift one corner of his mouth in a smile before drifting back into a deep sleep.

Holding his hand relieved almost all the pressure off of Lorelai's shoulders and she very nearly broke down with relief. Instead of an onslaght of tears, she allowed that overwhelming relief to lull her back to sleep, with Luke's hand still clasped tightly in hers. His steady breathing was the most soothing noise she'd heard in five long months.

_It's always better when we're together_

_We'll look at them stars when we're together_

_Yeah, it's always better when we're together_

Luke was dreaming. Not all of it made much sense – there were pastel colors and comforting noises. It was better than those nightmares from the plane ride and the crazy feeling of falling when they put him under before his surgery. Earlier, when he had woken up in the recovery room after his operation, he'd forgotten briefly that he was on the other side of the globe and had a moment of panic when a German nurse asked him how he felt. His recovery was apparently going well, the hospital food wasn't too bad, and when the grogginess from the anesthesia wore off, he'd be able to call home.

That was all that really mattered. He wanted to call Lorelai. He figured he needed to hear her voice as much as she needed to hear his. They'd told her he was missing, presumed dead. He worried for her and hoped she didn't take the news too badly, meanwhile knowing she would have. He hated that he put her through that, especially with her current condition.

Through most of the night after his operation, he just dreamt of soothing colors and sounds. He thought he might have been in a sea of foam with slowly changing colors and far off churning ocean waves. The foam felt like a soft blanket on his skin, cool to the touch but almost spongy in his hands. He let it take his anxieties, fears, and pain, and carry it off in waves of foam and light. He drifted without a body, deeper and deeper into that strange world until he felt something anchor him. It was the good kind of anchor, as if all of a sudden he had a body again and his hand was firmly clasped in another. He couldn't see it, only feel it, but he was sure it was Lorelai. He was still floating lazy and naked in the soft breeze of foam. His hand was anchored, but his legs could sink up and down, left and right.

Then he heard her breathing to his side and wondered if it was possible to share a dream with her. When he wondered if the babies had dreams, he slowly started to feel the bed supporting his body and soft beeping noises began making their way into his consciousness. He could still sense the breathing to his side and the hand holding his. The hand was warm and soft in his stinging palm. His eyes fluttered open for a moment and he saw the door standing ajar. Those strange colored lights shining through an ocean of foam played over his eyes again, and he struggled to bring himself fully back to reality. With his eyes completely open now, his gaze drifted naturally to his right and that soft breathing sound.

Lorelai was sitting there, slumped backwards, her hair tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing steadily, her left hand holding onto his. Luke blinked a couple times, not sure if she was real. He took in her very pregnant belly, and his heart started to pound in his ears. He ran a thumb over her hand, causing goosebumps to rise on his forearms from the absolute realness of her.

"Lorelai?" he whispered, tightening his fingers around her hand. "Is that really you?" he asked, his voice cracking. He swallowed as he watched her blink her eyes rapidly. She yawned and stretched catlike, resulting in her hand moving from his.

After rubbing her eyes, she finally caught sight of Luke and quickly returned her hand back to his. "Luke!" she said loudly, almost crying. "Hey," she said softly a moment later, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

"Lorelai," he said again, swallowing. "You're here?" he asked her, struggling to keep his own composure, almost crushing her hand in his.

Lorelai nodded furiously in response before leaning on him to kiss him. Luke encircled her with his arms and held on, regardless of the pain he felt in his abdomen. They both cried as they reunited with a sloppy kiss, only really caring that they could hold each other again.

When Lorelai pulled back, she sat on the side of his bed with his forearm clasped tightly against her belly. "Luke," she said, still sniffling. "Meet your babies."

Luke moved his free hand that was now shaking slightly to her womb, and an ecstatic smile appeared on his face.

"You have a son, Luke," Lorelai told him happily, to which he was completely speechless. "We couldn't tell what the other one is, but one of them is definitely a boy."

"R-really?" Luke asked, completely stunned.

"Yeah, I was . . . I was thinking," Lorelai said, looking down at his hand on her. "Maybe we could name him Sean? I-I heard what happened."

Luke met Lorelai's watery gaze and nodded. "He - They don't know if he'll make it." He watched as a few tears fell from her eyes and lifted his hand to wipe them away.

"God, Lorelai," he cried. "I missed you so much."

_And all of these moments_

_Just might find their way into my dreams tonight_

_But I know that they'll be gone_

_When the morning light sings_

_And brings new things_

_For tomorrow night you see_

_That they'll be gone too_

_Too many things I have to do_

_But if all of these dreams might find their way_

_Into my day to day scene_

_I'd be under the impression_

_I was somewhere in between_

_With only two_

_Just me and you_

_Not so many things we got to do_

_Or places we got to be_

_We'll sit beneath the mango tree now_

"So, we just need to think of a name for little no-name here?" Luke asked, grinning goofily with his hand on Lorelai's exposed belly.

"Hmm, yeah," she said, seated upon the side of Luke's hospital bed with her shirt hiked up just below her bust. She moved her hand to rest on top of Luke's on her womb. "Did you have any ideas?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe Jane or Janey, like my mom?" he said, a blush barely showing through the burns on his face.

"You think it'll be a girl?" Lorelai asked him, her eyes smiling.

"Well, I mean ... I'm happy with either, but I thought ... a daughter would be nice," Luke tried to explain, his ears now as red as his face.

"When I thought you'd-" Lorelai said quickly, stopping short to swallow. "When you were missing, I thought I might name one Luke, if we had a boy."

Luke placed his free hand on Lorelai's thigh and squeezed it. "Least we don't need to worry about naming either of them Luke now, then," he joked, trying to prevent the pooling tears in her eyes from falling.

Lorelai looked away for a moment and wiped her eyes before returning her gaze to him. "I also really like your dad's name, Micajah-Cage."

"Mmm." Luke chuckled, then cringed from the pain in his gut. "Don't make me laugh, Lorelai."

"Why is that so funny?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Grandma Bonnie got it from some taudry romance novel she really liked, about some southern Confederate soldier. My dad always said he liked his name but didn't appreciate it when his mother told people who she named him after."

"Wow, really?" Lorelai asked him, returning his smile.

"Yeah, well, I guess the author based her character off of a real guy, Micajah Autrey, but it didn't stop us from teasing Dad about his ... love larger than Texas, or his intense flames of agony, that sort of thing."

"Well, I still like it," Lorelai said petulantly, unable to hide an amused smile from blooming on her face.

"I do too," Luke said with a chuckle.

"I also thought that Agnes - Nessa, your Danes family name, was really unique."

"Mmmm," Luke agreed happily, his hand still caressing Lorelai's bare belly. "Who's the one that keeps kicking me?"

"That's Sean, pretty sure," Lorelai informed him, moving her hand next to his to feel the rumbling. "Quite the kicker. Maybe he'll be a soccer player?"

"Nah, field goal kicker," Luke said before lowering his eyes. "When we were out there, Sean and I, I told him he could be a Godfather."

"Okay," Lorelai agreed easily, moving her hand over his. "We owe him a lot more than that. I hope to God he makes it..."

"Yeah, Lorelai, would you..." Luke began, drifting off. He took a deep breath and continued, "would you go visit him? They won't let me go over to where he is, but he doesn't have anyone."

"I had planned to. Do you want me to go now?"

"I was just thinkin' about him, laying there all alone. He deserves better than that."

"I'll go now."

_It's always better when we're together_

_We're somewhere in between together_

_Yeah, it's always better when we're together_

Luke was asleep when Lorelai came back from Sean's room. His breathing was a little more labored than earlier, she figured from pain, and hit the button on his morphine drip as his nurse had recommended. She waited by his side until his breathing returned to normal, kissed him on the cheek, and went in search of food. No matter how dire the circumstances, the twins would not allow her to forget to eat.

When she reentered the room, Luke was still asleep and she smiled at the new patient residing to his left. Lorelai returned to her perch upon the side of Luke's bed, this time knitting a small blue baby cap with her hands resting on the top of her belly. Lost in the world of knitting, Lorelai only really heard the soft tap of her metal knitting needles until a hand on her side stirred her from her focused thoughts.

She smiled at the rousing Luke before her, drowsy and extremely happy to wake up to her by his side. "Good nap, baby?" Lorelai asked him softly.

He nodded, looking at the cap she was making. His smile grew wider. "It's so small," he rasped, clearing his throat.

Lorelai grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Twins are usually born earlier," she informed him. "They're smaller."

"Read that in the book you sent me," Luke said, placing his free hand on her womb. "You comfortable sitting like that?"

"I'll be fine for a little while," she told him, reaching a hand around to her back to rub it.

"I was so happy to see you, I didn't - When did you get here?"

"Last night, around midnight. I'd left the house in the Hollow at midnight, the day before."

"Twenty-four hours? Jeez, Lorelai, what were you thinking, traveling in your condition?" Luke said, suddenly incensed.

"What was I thinking?" she scoffed. "I was thinking that they told me my fiance was presumed dead! I was thinking that you might not make it!" she said loudly, growing irate. She rose to her feet before continuing, red in the face, "I was thinking that you're an idiot who marches through a fucking desert with a broken leg, a hundred miles from anything!"

"Jesus Christ, you two could raise the dead," a hoarse voice said through the curtain to the left. "And he didn't march, I carried the fat bastard on my shoulders."

Luke, who had been listening to Lorelai's remonstrations with a clenched jaw, blinked when he heard the male voice. "Sean?" he asked, stunned.

"So I take it this enraged fury of a woman is Lorelai," Sean snarked as Lorelai moved to pull the curtain back.

"Sean, how did you get in the ICU?" Luke asked. "They said you were in neuro in a coma..."

"No idea, just woke up, thanks to you two. From what I can tell, it was a pretty damn nice coma too!"

"That would be me," Lorelai said with some annoyance. "I convinced them he needed to be in the ICU," she explained, softer now, starting to come down from her rage. She plopped into the chair by Luke's bed and dropped her head to the back.

"Lorelai," Luke said apologetically, taking in her suddenly exhausted demeanor.

"Don't," she cut him off. "It's okay, I have to go back to the hotel. It's getting late."

"Dude, you're so in the dog house," Sean joked feebly, snickering.

"I don't want to hear anything from either of you," Lorelai grumbled, cutting off Sean's laughing as she struggled to stand again.

"Sorry," Sean said quickly, a blush evident across his own sunburned cheeks.

"Lorelai," Luke said again, raising his hand to her. Lorelai sighed and took it, leaning down to kiss him.

"We'll talk tomorrow, Luke," she said softly. "It's okay."

"Get some rest."

Lorelai walked to the door and turned towards the two men with her hand on the light switch. "Sean, it's nice to finally meet you. Now, you two stay out of trouble while I'm gone," she told them firmly before switching off the lights and closing the door behind her.

"What a woman," Sean whispered, awe-struck in the dark.

Luke grunted in response, smiled, and closed his eyes to dream of little babies with blue knit caps on their heads.

_I believe in memories_

_They look so, so pretty when I sleep_

_Hey now, and when I wake up,_

_You look so pretty sleeping next to me_

_But there is not enough time,_

_And there is no, no song I could sing_

_And there is no, combination of words I could say_

_But I will still tell you one thing_

_We're better together_

Sleep did not come easily to Lorelai that night, regardless of how exhausted she had felt before leaving the hospital. Her giant honeymoon sweet seemed to loom over her, and in the dark, all the gaudy furniture pieces looked like evil men lurking in the moonlight. She wanted desperately to go back to the hospital and sleep in that orange chair next to Luke. She reminisced about how easily she fell asleep after holding Luke's hand in hers and thought that if she went back it might be the same way. She wanted so desperately to sleep that when she did finally fall into the world of dreams, she was constantly greeted with fretful scenarios about missing alarms and Luke's bed being suddenly empty. In the worst nightmare that evening, she dreamt she had to run around the entire hospital searching for Luke with a full bladder. All the beds were empty and that annoying German nurse seemed to be waiting for her in every corner. The dream was so disturbing that she was convinced she'd been tricked into coming to Germany and Luke had never really been found.

When she awoke, her heart was pounding furiously, she was drenched in sweat, and her bladder was about to explode. To add to her discomfort, one of the twins was awake and kicking at her full bladder, making it so she almost missed getting to the bathroom in time. It was six am, and she returned to her bed to ease her weight for an hour more of restless, worrying thoughts. She wanted to get up, to head to the hospital, to see Luke, but something stopped her from moving. So she laid there for an hour, consumed with constant negative thoughts.

It was eight when Lorelai arrived at the hospital, feeling even more anxious than she did the day before. She tried to brush it off, knowing that Luke was fine up there on the fourth floor. He was alive; she'd _seen_ him. But she couldn't shake the feeling and resolved to see his face as soon as her feet could take her to him. That at least would loosen that ball of anxiety coiled tightly in her gut. Hopefully, it would also calm the restless babies inside of her who were currently engaged in a kickboxing match.

When she got to four-hundred and fifty-two, she found the door ajar and knew she had been right. In that moment she hated being right. She took a steadying breath and pushed through the door. The second grim sign was the fact that Luke's bed was gone from the room, and the third: Sean was awake and rubbing a shaky hand across his forehead.

"Sean," Lorelai said with a waver in her voice. "Where's Luke?"

Sean McCann met her worried gaze, as if seeing her for the first time, and exhaled forcefully. "He wasn't here when I woke up."

"Did they—"

"Mrs. Danes?" a man said from behind her, cutting off her question. Lorelai spun around and looked at the doctor with some relief. She didn't even notice that the doctor had assumed she was Luke's wife.

"Where's Luke?" she asked, her voice still tremoring. She placed both of her shaky hands on her womb and noticed the room had started to spin.

"Why don't you sit down?" the doctor said as he grabbed her arm to help her to the ugly orange chair before she fainted. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I think … just … a minute?" Lorelai asked him, strained. The doctor nodded and pulled up a second chair across from her. "Actually, please just tell me … Is he okay?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, your husband!" the doctor said, rising. He walked brisky to the doorway and pulled Luke's chart from a cubby on the wall. "He's fine," he told her as he read. "He was brought up to x-ray this morning. His orthopedist wanted to check out his leg again. He should be back any minute."

Lorelai sagged back in the chair and let out an enormous breath of air. "Okay, Doctor, you really need to lead with that next time," she groused, almost laughing.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Danes. I'm actually not here for Sergeant Danes."

"Lorelai. You can call me Lorelai if you'd like. Doctor…?"

"Fonzeratti."

"Fonzeratti? Sounds an awful lot like..." Lorelai said, unable to prevent a smile from lighting her face.

"It's _all_ been done, believe me," the doctor told her dryly. "The soldiers in particular like to shout, 'Aaaayyy!' to me whenever I walk by their beds."

Lorelai chuckled, trying to shake away the dregs of anxiety that had settled around her that morning.

"I spoke to your mother, Mrs. Gilmore, a few days ago over the phone. She had asked that I give you an exam when you arrived. I'm sorry I couldn't make it over yesterday."

"_You're_ the obstetrician?"

"Well, the closest thing to an OB that a military hospital can have. I have an appointment in a few minutes, but would you be able to stop by my office later today?"

"Oh, right, of course," Lorelai agreed easily, resting her hands on her womb. Both Lorelai and Dr. Fonzeratti turned their heads when Luke was wheeled back into the room, looking irate and uncomfortable.

"Two o'clock?" The doctor asked, then slipped out of the room at Lorelai's nod.

Lorelai struggled to stand from the chair and moved over to Luke's newly restored bedside. Luke was rubbing a hand over his forehead, trying to regulate his breathing.

"All right, babe?" Lorelai asked him, petting his other arm.

"Yeah, fine," Luke told her succinctly, forcing a smile for her benefit. Lorelai just rose her eyebrows in question.

"Just, the damn x-ray tech. Idiot almost broke my leg again. It was _not_ pleasant."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Your leg hurts?" Lorelai asked with a frown.

"It's starting to feel better," he grumbled. "I'm sorry," he exhaled. "Good morning," he continued, this time with a genuine smile and a tug on her arm. Lorelai bent to peck him on the lips and plopped back down into the orange chair.

It was Luke's turn to raise his eyebrows in question, and Lorelai sighed. "You weren't here this morning when I got in. I may have freaked a little."

"_A lot-_a-mundo," Sean piped in, in a sotto voice, startling both Luke and Lorelai as they had forgotten he was there. When Lorelai glared at him, he shrugged and said, "Aaaayyy..." with a goofy grin on his face.

"I'll have what he's having," Luke said to the room with a confused look on his face.

_Love is the answer,_

_At least for most of the questions in my heart_

_Like why are we here? And where do we go?_

_And how come it's so hard?_

_It's not always easy and_

_Sometimes life can be deceiving_

_I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together_

"Was your blood pressure high before you left the states?" Dr. Fonzeratti asked Lorelai who was seated upon an exam table in a hospital gown.

"Dr. Blackwell had mentioned that it was slightly elevated, but not enough to worry," Lorelai told him, almost despondently, trying to force a smile. "It's higher?"

"It's cause for some concern, especially with a multiple pregnancy at twenty-two weeks since you're at risk for preeclampsia. Have you had any other children?"

"My daughter, Rory, but it was twenty years ago," she told him, her feet swinging nervously back and fourth below the table.

"And you're thirty-six?"

"Yeah, thirty-seven in April," Lorelai responded slowly, her heart rate increasing.

"Okay, I can still clear you to fly back home, for now. But come to see me again tomorrow and we'll keep an eye on it. We might have to cut your trip short to ensure that you and the twins can arrive back home safely."

"Oh," Lorelai said, stunned. "Okay."

"Make sure to take it easy while you're here. Don't push yourself or lift anything and make sure to leave every evening so you can get about ten hours in bed at night. I'll have one of my nurses send a more comfortable chair up to Sergeant Danes' room, and you call me immediately if you experience any discomfort. I'd also like a urine sample to check your protein levels, but Jean can help you with that before you head back downstairs."

_It's always better when we're together_

_We'll look at them stars when we're together_

_Yeah, it's always better when we're together_

"He was just worried because my blood pressure is elevated," Lorelai explained to Luke. She was seated on the side of his hospital bed and had his hand clasped tightly in her own.

"Are you worried, Lorelai?" Luke asked her, curious to know what she thought.

Lorelai was only able to nod in response, then she crumbled before him. The tears she had been holding at bay all morning fell swiftly from her eyes, and she leaned towards Luke to place her head on his shoulder.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "We made it this far," he told her. "We can do anything now."

"I think … I think I hurt them," she told him softly. "When we thought … When they told us … It was awful, I wasn't supposed to get … I couldn't help it," she cried.

"Hey, come on, if anyone hurt them, it wasn't you," Luke insisted, rubbing her back, his own muscles going tense.

"No." Lorelai shook her head forcefully as she pulled back. "You didn't do anything wrong, Luke!"

"Lorelai," Luke said softly before swallowing and wiping the tears from her cheeks. "If anything happened to you or those babies, I ... I'd never forgive myself."

"Luke," came Lorelai's barely audible response.

Taking in a giant lungful of air, Luke continued, unable to meet her eyes. "I know you were supposed to stay for a week ... Maybe it's best if you go home sooner, just to be on the safe side."

"You know I'd much rather stay with you," Lorelai said, looking down at her hands clasped in his.

"You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that," Luke responded huskily.

A corner of Lorelai's mouth quirked up, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Some days, I wake up from a dream about ... about buying your basket and having a picnic in the gazebo and you walking away," he explained, almost in an awed whisper. "And I wake up and think, 'Wow, she really loves me. That girl is mine.'" Luke finished, the corners of his own lips lifting upwards.

Lorelai looked down coyly before her eyes met his. Her grip tightened. "I'll call my mother," she said sadly. Luke merely nodded, gulping as he squeezed his fingers around hers.


End file.
